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不同类型的角色扮演游戏，以及《暗黑破坏神II》如何借鉴它们

The Different Kinds of RPG, and How Diablo II Borrows from Them

数字角色扮演游戏的最初问题

The Original Problem of Digitial RPGs

从学术角度来看，角色扮演游戏（RPG）历史最棒的地方在于它有着清晰的起源。第一款RPG无疑是早期版本的《龙与地下城》（以下简称D&D，句首除外），它于1968年至1970年间发展起来。D &D的发展解释了为何如今RPG种类繁多，以及为何不同类型RPG的受众群体可能并不喜欢另一种。在本系列的前一本书《逆向设计：最终幻想VII》中，我较为全面地阐述了从D&D到现代RPG的发展历程。如果您想了解更深入的RPG设计史，我推荐这本书以及它引用的众多优秀著作，尤其是Jon Peterson和Shannon Appelcline的作品。然而，本书只需关注RPG发展史上相对早期发生的两个事件：专精式角色扮演游戏的诞生和动作角色扮演游戏的诞生。这两件事都是对《龙与地下城》的回应，并创造了最终构成《暗黑破坏神II》的大部分设计素材。

From an academic perspective, the best thing about RPG history is that it has a clear beginning. The first RPG was definitely one of the early forms of Dungeons & Dragons (hereafter D&D except at the beginning of a sentence), which were developed from 1968 through 1970. The development of D&D explains why there are so many different kinds of RPGs today, and why the audience for one type might not like another. In the previous book in this series, Reverse Design: Final Fantasy VII, I laid out a fairly comprehensive history of the path from D&D to modern RPGs. If you’re looking for a longer explanation of RPG design history, I recommend that book and the many great books it cites, especially the work of Jon Peterson and Shannon Appelcline. For this book, however, we only need to look at two events that happened relatively early in the history of RPGs: the birth of the specialization style and the birth of the action RPG. These two events occurred in reaction to D&D and created the majority of the design material that would eventually make up Diablo II.

《龙与地下城》给角色扮演游戏（RPG）设计师带来了一个巨大的难题：它几乎包含了RPG游戏所能做的一切。到了20世纪80年代初，《龙与地下城》已经包含了……数百（甚至数千）个重要的角色扮演游戏（RPG）设计理念都源自《高级龙与地下城》（AD&D ）规则书，而且这些理念并非微不足道。我们如今在RPG中看到的绝大多数结构系统，在AD & D规则书出版之前就已经经历了多次迭代。诸如随机敌人生成、随机战利品、地下城光照等级、技能冷却时间、难度设置以及物品创建等理念，早在任何电子游戏设计师尝试运用它们之前，就已经存在于《龙与地下城》之中。 [ 1-3 ]《龙与地下城》的庞大体系意味着设计师们很难创造出机制上独树一帜的RPG。许多早期模仿《龙与地下城》的RPG仅仅改变了游戏背景和美学风格。许多游戏或多或少都只是太空版的《龙与地下城》，或是蒸汽朋克版的《龙与地下城》。其中一些游戏堪称经典，但它们并没有真正改变RPG类型的格局或玩法。然而，有一款游戏却采取了截然相反的策略，只专注于《龙与地下城》机制的一小部分。这款游戏就是《Rogue》，它催生了roguelike游戏类型。

Dungeons & Dragons presents a huge problem for RPG designers: it does almost everything that an RPG can do. By the early 1980s, D&D already included hundreds (if not thousands) of important RPG design ideas, and these were not small ideas, either. Most of the structural systems which we would recognize in our modern RPGs had already seen a few iterations by the time the books comprising Advanced D&D (AD&D) came out. Ideas like random enemy spawns, randomized loot, lighting levels in dungeons, ability cooldowns, difficulty settings, and item creation all existed in D&D long before any videogame designer attempted to use them.[1–3] The staggering completeness of D&D meant that designers had a hard time making an RPG that felt mechanically original. Many of the first RPGs to emulate D&D only changed the setting and aesthetics. There are many games that are more or less D&D in space, or in steampunk settings, etc. Some of those games are classics, but they didn’t really change the scope or methods of the RPG genre. One game took the opposite strategy, however, and focused only on a small subset of D&D’s mechanics. That game was Rogue, which spawned the roguelike genre.

《Rogue》摒弃了所有与地牢探索无关的角色扮演游戏元素。没有城镇，几乎没有剧情，也没有小游戏或对话选项。只有地牢探索。《Rogue》的目标是让玩家尽快进入地牢，并无限期地困在那里——不断地探索地牢。它的所有功能都源自《龙与地下城》（D&D） ，尽管形式各异。然而，《Rogue》与原作截然不同，因为它如此专注于地牢探索。《Rogue》比一般的《龙与地下城》游戏更容易让玩家角色死亡，因为玩家只需按下几个按钮就能回到地牢。此外，《Rogue》还能迫使玩家在短时间内掌握地牢的所有技巧，因为技巧并不多。玩家无需担心队伍配置和职业选择。《Rogue》的随机性也使其拥有更大的波动性，因为游戏时长较短，任何单一事件都难以产生深远的影响。玩家最多只会损失几个小时的游戏进度。这种权衡取舍正是《Rogue》以及所有采用相同设计策略的游戏成功的秘诀。《Rogue》舍弃了一些RPG设计理念，以强化其他理念。这种设计策略我称之为“专精化” 。专精型RPG指的是那些只专注于《龙与地下城》原作中一小部分内容的RPG 。 《Rogue》开创了roguelike游戏类型，并为《暗黑破坏神》的设计者最终采用的某种专精化模式树立了标杆。

Rogue abandons all the parts of an RPG that do not directly relate to dungeon crawling. There are no towns, there is essentially no plot, and there are no mini-games or dialogue trees. There is only dungeon crawling. The goal of Rogue is to get a player into a dungeon as fast as possible, and keep him or her there indefinitely—always crawling more dungeon. Rogue doesn’t have any features that were not, in some form, originally invented in D&D. Yet, Rogue seems very different from its source material because it focuses so intently on doing one thing. Rogue can kill the player character more often than the average D&D campaign because the player is back in the dungeon after a few button presses. Moreover, Rogue can force the player to learn all the tricks of its dungeons in a short period of time because there aren’t that many tricks. The player doesn’t have to worry about party composition and job classes. Rogue is also able to have a greater degree of volatility in its random operations because the game is too short for any single game event to have far-reaching effects. The player can never really lose more than a few hours of progress. These tradeoffs are the secret to the success of Rogue, and all games that use the same design strategy. Rogue gets rid of certain RPG design ideas to embellish others. This design strategy is what I call specialization. A specialization-type RPG is any RPG that focuses on just a tiny part of the D&D source material. In spawning the roguelike genre, Rogue made a template for a certain kind of specialization that the Diablo designers would eventually use.

《Rogue》中有两个设计理念在历史上得到了重要的体现。第一个理念是程序生成内容，第二个理念是永久死亡。程序生成内容指的是游戏中的某些内容，例如关卡布局、怪物属性和魔法物品特性，是由算法而非设计师直接生成的。《Rogue》对程序生成内容的依赖程度非常高。程序生成内容使得玩家可以探索几乎无限种类的地下城，这对于《Rogue》来说至关重要，因为游戏中没有其他内容可玩。《龙与地下城》实际上是程序生成内容的先驱，尽管它依靠骰子和玩家的想象力来实现。在《龙与地下城》中，房间布局、物品掉落和敌人遭遇战通常都由（纸质）程序来辅助设计。《Rogue》则完全不同。《Rogue》比《龙与地下城》走得更远，几乎将游戏设计的方方面面都变成了程序生成。而永久死亡机制则要求玩家角色每次死亡后游戏都必须从头开始，没有任何存档保存。这使得《Rogue》的游戏时间更长，因为玩家每次死亡都必须重新挑战全新的地下城。对于20世纪80年代的街机游戏来说，这是一种常见的延长游戏寿命的策略。但对于注重长期角色成长的角色扮演游戏（RPG）而言，这种做法并不常见。《龙与地下城》中的队伍当然会经常团灭，但《Rogue》通过让团灭更加频繁，并消除玩家的大部分防御手段，进一步强化了这一概念。很少有地下城主会每小时多次团灭玩家的队伍，但在《Rogue》中，这却不足为奇。

There are two design ideas that are embellished in historically important ways in Rogue. The first idea is procedural content generation, and the second idea is permadeath. Procedural content generation means that some parts of a game’s content, like level layouts, monster stats, and magical item properties are created by an algorithm rather than by the direct work of a designer. Rogue relies very heavily on procedural content generation. Procedural content allows for an effectively infinite variety of dungeons to explore, which is necessary for Rogue since there’s nothing else to do in the game. Dungeons & Dragons actually pioneered procedural content generation, although it relied on dice and the human imagination to implement it. Room layouts, item drops, and enemy encounters in D&D are often augmented by (paper) procedures. Rogue simply goes further than D&D does by making nearly every aspect of the game design procedural. Permadeath, on the other hand, requires that with every death of the player character, the game starts over from scratch, with nothing preserved. This makes Rogue longer by forcing the player to play fresh dungeons every time he or she dies. For arcade games of the 1980s, this is a common enough strategy for extending the life of a game’s content. For RPGs, with their focus on long-term character progression, this is not especially common. Parties in D&D campaigns are, of course, wiped out all the time, but Rogue embellishes this idea by making it more common, and by eliminating most of the player’s defenses against it. Few dungeon masters kill their players’ parties multiple times an hour, but in Rogue, this would not be surprising at all.

作为重要的历史背景，我想指出，虽然《Rogue》的关键改进是对《龙与地下城》（D&D）的一种艺术反叛，但这款游戏也受到技术因素的影响。1981年，没有任何商用电脑能够模拟D&D的所有主要系统。《Rogue》通过舍弃大量标准的D&D系统来节省时间。然而， 《Rogue》更进一步，它甚至放弃了内容，转而使用算法。桌面角色扮演游戏（RPG）的生命力在于内容。也就是说，设计师（例如你们游戏团的地下城主）会创建和/或部署一系列预先构建的遭遇战，最终构成一个完整的战役。《Rogue》的设计师几乎完全将内容生成交给了算法，这些算法负责构建地下城、放置怪物和分发物品。这种内容的缺失节省了大量的磁盘空间，这在1981年是极其宝贵的资源。它也为设计团队节省了大量用于制作内容的时间和金钱。下一节将探讨随着技术和时间限制的放宽，后来的roguelike游戏及其衍生子类型如何在不再需要的情况下仍然保持程序生成内容的首要地位。最终，技术限制演变为艺术限制，roguelike也成为其他类型角色扮演游戏（RPG）的组成部分。

As an important historical aside, I want to point out that while the key embellishments in Rogue were a product of an artistic reaction against D&D, the game was also shaped by technological concerns. No commercial computer in 1981 could have simulated all of the major systems in D&D. Rogue saves time by abandoning a large amount of the standard D&D systems. Rogue goes further, however, in that it also abandons content in favor of algorithms. The tabletop RPG lives on content. That is, a designer (such as your group’s dungeon master) creates and/or deploys a series of pre-constructed encounters which add up to a campaign. Rogue’s designers turned this content generation almost entirely over to a set of algorithms that construct dungeons, place monsters, and dispense items. This lack of content saves a lot of disc space, which, in 1981, was a precious resource. It also saves the design team a lot of time and money spent on making content. The next section looks at how, as technology and time constraints loosened, later roguelikes and derivative subgenres preserved the primacy of procedural content even when they didn’t have to. Eventually, a technological constraint became an artistic constraint, and the roguelike became an ingredient in other kinds of RPGs.

Roguelike游戏作为一种商品

Roguelikeness as a Commodity

电子游戏设计史上最古老的主题之一，便是技术限制如何转化为艺术策略。西角友宏（我们稍后会再次提及）将微处理器的一项意想不到的特性，发展成为所有主流电子游戏设计的基石。同样，《暗黑破坏神II》的设计者们借鉴了Roguelike游戏中出现的程序生成和永久死亡机制（这两个概念的出现部分源于技术限制），并将它们转化为艺术资源。了解《暗黑破坏神II》最重要的一点在于，它巧妙地运用了其素材，并以一种独特的方式呈现出来。本质上，《暗黑破坏神II》的设计者们意识到，Roguelike并非非此即彼；游戏可以具有某种程度的Roguelike特性。最明显的例子是，《暗黑破坏神》系列采用实时制，而大多数Roguelike前作则采用回合制。当然，还有许多其他例子。《暗黑破坏神II》中的玩家死亡机制显然借鉴了Roguelike游戏的先例，但为了迎合更广泛的玩家群体，也进行了一些调整。当玩家角色死亡（在软核模式下），角色死亡会损失金币和经验值。玩家如果能找到自己的尸体，可以找回一部分，但有些则无法找回。因此，死亡会受到惩罚——有时惩罚相当严厉——但这种惩罚方式更适合主流玩家。不过，《暗黑破坏神II》也提供了硬核模式，如果玩家想要挑战更高难度，该模式会重新启用永久死亡机制。程序生成也是设计师们尝试而非完全采用的一种技术。传统的Roguelike地牢几乎完全由算法生成，而《暗黑破坏神II》中的许多场景实际上拥有大量的固定地形和固定敌人位置——远超大多数人的想象。[ 4 ]

The oldest theme in the history of videogame design is that technological constraints become artistic strategies. Tomohiro Nishikado (whom we will discuss again later) turned an unexpected property of a microprocessor into the foundation of all mainstream videogame design. In a similar fashion, the designers of Diablo II took procedural generation and permadeath (two ideas instituted partly because of technical constraints) as they appear in Rogue and roguelikes and turned them into artistic resources. One of the most important things to know about Diablo II is that it plays with its source material and implements it in an idiosyncratic way. In essence, the designers of Diablo II saw that roguelikeness was not a binary thing; games can be somewhat roguelike. The most obvious example of this is the fact that the Diablo games take place in real time, whereas most of its roguelike predecessors are turn-based. There are plenty of other examples, however. Player death in Diablo II is clearly based on its roguelike antecedents, but with some adaptations for a wider audience. When a player-character dies (on softcore setting), that character loses gold and experience points. Some of that can be retrieved if the player can reach his or her own corpse, but some of it is irretrievable. Thus, death is penalized—sometimes quite heavily—but in a way that’s more appropriate for a mainstream audience. Then again, Diablo II also has a hardcore setting which reinstitutes permadeath if the player wants the extra challenge. Procedural generation is also something the designers play with rather than employ entirely. Traditional roguelike dungeons are almost entirely algorithmic, whereas many locations in Diablo II actually have a great deal of fixed terrain and fixed enemy locations—far more than most people imagine.[4]

《暗黑破坏神II》在某些方面偏离了传统的Roguelike模式，这实际上很好地反映了设计者想要重现经典Roguelike精神的程度。在早期的Roguelike游戏中，物品鉴定是一个重要的瓶颈，它限制了玩家使用任何找到的物品。不仅许多物品在玩家拾取时未经鉴定，就连物品鉴定卷轴本身也是一个未经鉴定的物品，需要玩家盲目使用才能确定其内容。这种不确定性和随机性正是David Brevik所说的他喜欢早期Roguelike游戏的原因之一，但这与《暗黑破坏神》系列的风格并不相符。[ 5 ]事实上，这种随机性的不确定性不仅被削弱了，在某些游戏机制中甚至被彻底颠覆了。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，迪卡德·凯恩可以批量鉴定整个背包的物品。

Some of the ways in which Diablo II deviates from the roguelike formula are actually very informative about the degree to which the designers wanted to recapture the old roguelike spirit. In early roguelikes, item identification is an important bottleneck that prevents players from being able to use just any item they find. Not only are many items unidentified when the player picks them up, but the item identification scroll itself is an unidentified item that needs to be used blindly in order to determine what it is. This kind of volatility and blind chance was one of the things that David Brevik said he liked about early roguelikes, but which didn’t fit the voice of the Diablo games.[5] Indeed, not only was that kind of blind volatility diminished, it was actually reversed in some of the game’s mechanics. In Diablo II, Deckard Cain can mass-identify an entire inventory’s worth of items.

人们很容易将这种变化解读为现代开发者为了迎合休闲玩家而降低产品难度。这种假设由来已久，几乎每个电子游戏类型都有其独特之处。但实际上，就像当时许多角色扮演游戏一样，《暗黑破坏神II》是在舍弃一个核心理念来完善另一个理念。他们的确想要扩大受众群体，但同时也希望加快游戏节奏并扩展游戏内容。

It would be easy to see this change as modern developers dumbing down their product to reach casual players. This is an assumption game critics have made for as long as there have been identifiable videogame genres. But, like many RPGs of its time, Diablo II is actually dropping one idea to embellish another. They wanted to widen their audience, yes, but they also wanted to speed up and expand the game.

通过消除物品识别瓶颈，《暗黑破坏神II》得以将游戏的重心集中在物品获取循环上。这绝非偶然。——布雷维克他想重现当年玩《Angband》和《Moria》的体验，这两款roguelike游戏是他大学时非常喜欢的。他回忆说，他和几个朋友经常一起在电脑室玩（尽管是单人游戏），当掉落稀有强力物品时，他们会互相喊着看。“你基本上从来不会真的去杀炎魔，”他说，“你玩游戏就是为了那些极其稀有的物品。” [ 6 ] Max Schaefer也表达了类似的观点，他说他的重点在于创造强大的物品，让玩家能够体验到不同的游戏感受。[ 7 ]虽然永久死亡和其他roguelike设计理念对设计师来说很重要，但他们最想重现的体验是发现一件极其稀有的物品，并由此引发游戏难度骤然提升的那种欣喜若狂的感觉。

By eliminating the identification bottleneck, Diablo II is able to center the game’s focus on the item acquisition loop. There was nothing accidental about this. Brevik wanted to recapture the experience of playing Angband and Moria, two roguelikes he enjoyed in college. He remembered that he and several friends would play in the computer lab together (even though these were single-player games), and they would shout to one another to come and look when a rare and powerful item would drop. “You basically never actually killed the balrog,” he said. “You would play for those really rare items instead.”[6] Max Schaefer said something similar, saying that his focus was in creating powerful items that allowed players to have differing experiences of the game.[7] Although permadeath and other roguelike design ideas were important to the designers, the primary experience that they wanted to recreate was the ecstatic discovery of a very rare item that caused a sudden swing in difficulty.

桌面游戏的传承：角色职业

The Legacy of the Tabletop: Character Classes

《暗黑破坏神II》与它的Roguelike前辈游戏在角色职业系统上的差异也体现在了角色职业的运用上。虽然角色职业是RPG游戏的基础概念之一，但《暗黑破坏神II》借鉴其诸多核心理念的Roguelike游戏并没有大量运用角色职业系统。这或许是它们自身规模缩减所致。《暗黑破坏神II》尽管拥有相对庞大的预算，却依然沿袭了Roguelike游戏的精简规模。实时游戏机制并没有让《暗黑破坏神II》失去Roguelike游戏的波动性、危险性和无穷无尽（但略显狭窄）的变化，它只是将这些元素以实时方式呈现出来。然而，角色职业系统却是它与直接启发它的Roguelike游戏的一大区别。每个角色职业都独具特色，而这些差异也体现在游戏的底层系统中。下图展示了《暗黑破坏神II》中不同职业之间的主要属性差异（生命值） 。[ 8 ]

Another way that Diablo II diverges from its roguelike ancestors is in the use of character classes. Although the character class was one of the foundational ideas of the RPG, the roguelikes from which Diablo II borrows many of its core ideas did not use character classes in a significant way. This was probably a product of their idiosyncratic reduction in scope. Diablo II, despite having a comparatively massive budget, mostly sticks to the reduced scope that it inherited from the roguelike. Real-time gameplay doesn’t really take Diablo II away from the volatility, danger and endless (but narrow) variation of the roguelike, it just recasts those things in real time. Character classes, however, are a major deviation from the roguelikes that directly inspired the game. Every character class feels distinct, and their differences are reflected in the underlying systems of the game. Below is a graph that visualizes the primary statistical difference (HP) between classes in Diablo II.[8]

虽然最明显的趋势是脆弱的施法者和强壮的近战战士之间的分化，但职业之间的差异并非泾渭分明，而是一个连续谱。职业之间存在诸多不同，不过本节我们只探讨其属性方面的差异。本书下一节还将探讨动作游戏中不同职业之间的差异，例如机动性和群体控制技能的差异。现在，我们将重点关注模拟技能系统（角色扮演游戏中的属性）以及游戏中少量与职业相关的物品。

Although the most obvious trend is the divide between fragile casters and hearty melee fighters, the classes exist on a spectrum rather than in two undifferentiated lumps. There are quite a few differences between classes, although we’re only going to examine the statistical parts in this section. In the next section of this book, we will also examine the action-game differences between classes, like differences in mobility and crowd control skills. For now, we’re going to focus on simulated skill systems (RPG stats) and the few class-based items the game employs.

在西方角色扮演游戏中，职业的区分历来依赖于角色拥有的技能和装备。暗黑破坏神系列遵循了前者，但并非后者。每个职业都拥有独特的技能，尤其体现在被动技能上。在装备方面，暗黑破坏神II尝试加入少量职业专属装备，但大部分装备所有职业均可使用。本节将主要探讨角色技能如何区分各个职业，以及这种区分是如何受到影响其设计师的传统桌面角色扮演游戏的影响。本节的大部分内容将围绕传统角色扮演游戏技能及其对应的游戏系统展开。尽管暗黑破坏神II的角色职业在很多方面都与桌面角色扮演游戏的原型相似，但其本质却截然不同。在桌面角色扮演游戏中，一些角色几乎不造成任何伤害。相反，他们负责治疗、保护、强化、隐蔽、转移、谈判以及执行其他各种任务。而在暗黑破坏神II中，所有角色都旨在屠戮成群的敌人。野蛮人和圣骑士比女巫和死灵法师更擅长扛怪，但他们必须能够独自屠戮恶魔大军，否则《暗黑破坏神》就会失去其独特的魅力。这也是本书对多人游戏机制着墨甚少的主要原因之一。随着更多玩家加入《暗黑破坏神II》游戏，敌人的生命值、经验值和物品掉落率都会大幅提升，这对玩家非常有利，鼓励玩家组队。然而，敌人的属性并没有发生任何需要坦克/输出/治疗平衡的改变。一支由八名女巫组成的队伍也能像一支更均衡的队伍一样发挥出色，而这正是游戏设计的初衷。

Historically, character classes in Western RPGs have been distinguished by the abilities they possess and the gear they equip. Diablo adheres to the former criterion, but not the latter. Each class features distinct abilities, especially in their passives. When it comes to gear, Diablo II experiments with a small amount of class-based gear, but most of it is usable by any class. In this section, we’re going to primarily examine how character abilities distinguish each character class, and how that is a product of the traditional tabletop RPGs that influenced its designers. Most of this section will be about traditional RPG abilities and the RPG systems that support them. Although the character classes of Diablo II resemble their tabletop antecedents in many ways, there’s a big difference beneath the surface. In tabletop RPGs, some characters hardly deal any damage to enemies at all. Instead, they heal, protect, enhance, obscure, redirect, negotiate, and do many other things. In Diablo II, all characters are constructed to slay hordes of enemies. Barbarians and Paladins are much better at tanking than Sorceresses and Necromancers, but they have to be able to slaughter the demonic hordes by themselves, or else Diablo loses its unique voice. This is one of the primary reasons why this book contains so little about multiplayer mechanics. As more players join a Diablo II game, the HP, experience values, and item drop rates increase in a way that’s very favorable to the player, encouraging large parties. However, there are no statistical changes to enemies that would require the tank/DPS/heal balance. A team of eight Sorceresses will perform just as well as a more balanced team, and that’s intentional.

角色系统概述

Character Systems Overview

在详细介绍各个职业之前，我想先解释一下这些职业共有的一些系统。区分不同职业主要有三个方面：基础属性、元素属性和移动技能。基础属性是《暗黑破坏神II》中所有模拟技能生效的数值基础。基础属性包括力量、敏捷、能量和活力等。这些属性决定了角色的物理伤害和负重能力、命中率和闪避率、法力值和生命值，以及其他一些增益效果。每次角色升级，玩家都可以将五点属性点投入到一项基础属性中，但根据职业的不同，获得的增益效果也会有所不同。玩家还可以投资技能的基础属性，将点数投入到攻击法术、移动技能和被动技能中，以提升它们的效能。这些属性在不同职业之间也存在很大差异——有时甚至同一职业的不同流派之间也会有很大的不同。最后，每个职业都有其独特的元素属性。也就是说，每个职业都可以使用几种类型的伤害，但没有哪个职业能够使用所有类型的伤害。

Before we get to each class, I want to unpack some of the systems that those classes share. There are three different dynamics that differentiate character classes: base stats, elemental availability, and mobility skills. Base stats are the numbers that make all of Diablo II’s simulated skills work. Base stats are things like strength, dexterity, energy, and vitality. These stats give characters physical damage and carrying capacity, hit rating and evasion, mana and HP, and a few other benefits besides. Every time a character gains a level, the player can invest five points into one of these base stats, but depending on character class, the benefits will be different. The player also invests in the base stats of skills, putting points into offensive spells, mobility skills, and passive abilities to raise their effectiveness. These too differ greatly between classes—and sometimes even differ greatly between different builds of the same class. Finally, each class has a unique elemental profile. That is, each class has access to a few types of damage, but no class has access to all the types.

基础属性

Base Stats

和所有角色扮演游戏一样，《暗黑破坏神II》也采用了模拟技能系统。模拟技能指的是角色学习的技能，而不是玩家操控角色时学习的技能。例如，在《真人快打》中，玩家需要学习并执行特定的按键组合才能使用火球术。而在《暗黑破坏神II》中，如果玩家选择，女巫可以在12级时学习火球术。之后，玩家只需点击鼠标即可。由于《暗黑破坏神II》是一款动作游戏，因此瞄准火球术和其他类似技能需要一定的技巧，但提升火球术的威力主要取决于角色的属性，而非技巧。（当然，也有少数技能确实能从动作机制中获益，我们将在下一节中详细介绍。）幸运的是，《暗黑破坏神II》提供了多种提升角色基础属性或技能的方法，因此这些属性值得单独介绍。

Like all RPGs, Diablo II is built on a system of simulated skills. A simulated skill is any skill that a character learns, rather than the player who controls that character. In Mortal Kombat, for example, the player has to learn and perform a button combination in order to use a fireball attack. In Diablo II, the Sorceress can learn the fireball attack at level twelve if the player chooses it. After that, the player only has to point and click. Because Diablo II is an action game, there’s some skill in aiming the fireball and other skills like it, but making the fireball more powerful is mostly a matter of stats rather than skill. (There are a small number of skills that really benefit from action mechanics, but we’ll get to them in the next section.) Fortunately, Diablo II offers quite a few different ways to augment the basic stats of a character or character’s skill, which is why these stats merit their own section.

活力与能量

Vitality and Energy

《暗黑破坏神II》中最基本的模拟技能形式是属性点。大多数角色扮演游戏（RPG）都有属性点，玩家可以将其分配到角色身上，分配方式可以是随机的，也可以是使用固定的预算。 《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家的角色升级后会获得属性点，并以此为基础进行分配。游戏中的大部分属性与《龙与地下城》（D& D）中的属性非常相似，只有一些细微的差别。例如， 《暗黑破坏神II》中的生命值（Vitality）属性与《龙与地下城》中的体质（Constitution）属性非常相似。将点数分配到这两个属性中，角色都能获得更多的生命值（HP）。具体的实现方式有所不同——在《暗黑破坏神II》中，生命值直接影响生命值，而在《龙与地下城》中，生命值的提升还带有一定的随机性。然而，其基本原理非常相似。能量（Energy）属性的作用类似于生命值对法术资源（魔法值）的作用。正因如此， 《暗黑破坏神II》中的能量属性在《龙与地下城》中没有完全对应的属性。在《龙与地下城》中，角色必须休息一段时间才能恢复技能。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家必须使用药水或技能来恢复点数。此外，能量属性对法术威力没有影响。这种情况比较少见——即使在允许玩家直接投入点数到技能上的游戏中，通常也会有一个单独的角色属性会影响某些法术的威力。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，这种情况仅适用于带有物理伤害的技能。《暗黑破坏神II》中的法术威力只能通过技能专属点数来提升。

The most basic form of simulated skill in Diablo II is the stat point. Most RPGs have stat points that a player can invest in a character, either by random chance or out of a budget. Diablo II gives the player points to invest out of a budget earned after a character gains a level. Most of its stats closely resemble those that were originally invented in D&D with a few minor differences. For example, the vitality stat in Diablo II closely resembles the constitution stat from D&D. Investing points into either stat will allow the character to gain more HP. The exact implementation is different—points invested in vitality directly affect HP in Diablo II, whereas in D&D, there is also some randomness in the process. The fundamental idea is, however, very similar. Energy does for spell resources (the mana pool) what vitality does for HP. The Diablo II energy stat doesn’t have a great analogue in D&D for this reason. In D&D, the character has to rest for a certain amount of time before replenishing his skills. In Diablo II, the player has to use a potion or a skill that regenerates points. Also, energy stat has no effect on the power of spells. This is relatively rare—even in games that allow direct investment of points into skills, there is usually a separate character stat which also contributes to the power of some spells. In Diablo II, this is only true of skills with a physical component. Spells in Diablo II only gain power from skill-specific points.

力量和灵巧性

Strength and Dexterity

《暗黑破坏神II》中的力量和敏捷属性与它们的《龙与地下城》 /roguelike游戏原型非常接近，只有一个小小的改动却产生了巨大的影响。力量属性允许角色穿戴更重的盔甲和武器，并提升近战攻击的伤害。所有这些都符合传统的角色扮演游戏设计。敏捷属性在物理攻击（包括近战和远程攻击）的命中率中起着至关重要的作用。这与《暗黑破坏神II》发行时流行的桌面游戏也十分一致。与当时桌面游戏属性的唯一真正区别在于，敏捷属性也影响远程伤害。我们将在命中率部分更深入地探讨这一点，但基本思路是，敏捷属性对远程攻击者的作用是力量属性对近战攻击者的两倍。敏捷属性不仅能提升他们的伤害，还能……同时，这也提高了远程攻击的精准度。由于远程攻击者可以“双重”获得敏捷加成，许多远程攻击的平衡性（或者说惩罚性）与近战攻击相比并无太大差异。理论上，这完全可以接受，但实际操作中却存在一些疏漏。我们将在角色介绍部分详细探讨这些能力，但问题似乎源于远程攻击者可以获得双重加成。

Strength and dexterity in Diablo II are also close to their D&D/roguelike ancestors, with one small change that has some huge consequences. Strength allows characters to wield heavier armor and heavier weapons, and to deal more damage with melee attacks. All of that is totally orthodox RPG design. Dexterity plays a huge role in hit rate for physical attacks—both melee and ranged attacks. This is also orthodox to the tabletop games that existed at the time of Diablo II’s release. The only real deviation from contemporary tabletop stats is that dexterity also governs ranged damage. We’ll cover this in more depth in the section on hit rates, but the basic idea is that dexterity is twice as useful for ranged attackers as strength is for melee fighters. Not only does dexterity help their damage, it also makes their attacks more accurate at the same time. Because ranged attackers get to “double dip” in dexterity, many ranged attacks are balanced (one might say penalized) in a way that melee attacks are not. In theory, this is a perfectly acceptable tradeoff, but in execution there are some oversights. We’ll examine those abilities in the character sections, but it does seem like the genesis of this problem is the fact that ranged attackers get two bonuses.

《暗黑破坏神II》中属性系统唯一真正非同寻常之处在于，不同角色从属性点中获得的收益截然不同。在大多数角色扮演游戏中，无论职业如何，任何属性点投入一点所带来的收益都是相同的。虽然职业技能可能会对这些属性点赋予更高的或更低的加成，但基于感知或魅力等属性的基础检定结果，对于任何两个在该属性值相同且没有其他加成（例如专长）的角色来说都是相同的。然而在《暗黑破坏神II》中，生命值和法力值的投入收益在不同角色之间差异显著。不过，这些收益其实也符合直觉：野蛮人从活力属性中获得的生命值收益是女巫的两倍，而法力值和能量值的情况则恰恰相反。其他角色的收益则介于两者之间。

The only really unorthodox dynamic in the implementation of stats in Diablo II is the way that stat points confer different amounts of benefit for different characters. In most RPGs, a single point in any given stat confers the same amount of general benefit, regardless of class. There may be class-based abilities that apply higher or lower multipliers to those stats, but basic rolls depending on a stat like wisdom or charisma will be the same for any two character classes who have the same value in that stat and no other modifiers (like feats). In Diablo II, the returns on HP and mana investment differ significantly across the characters. These returns are intuitive, however; the Barbarian gets twice as much HP from vitality as the Sorceress, and the reverse is true for mana and energy. The other characters are somewhere in the middle.

灵巧度、等级和命中率

Dexterity, Level and Hit Rates

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，如果法术动画接触到目标怪物的图像，魔法攻击的命中率是100%。物理攻击只有在玩家等级足够高、命中率足够高，并且有一定的运气成分时才能命中。决定命中率的最重要因素是攻击者的命中率，它与防御怪物的防御率进行比较。下图展示了命中率的提升如何提高对同等级怪物的命中率。[ 9 ]

In Diablo II, magical attacks have a 100% hit rate if the spell animation comes in contact with the targeted monster’s sprite. Physical attacks only hit if the player has a sufficiently high level, a sufficiently high hit rating, and a little bit of luck. The single most important determining factor in hit rates is the attacking character’s hit rating, measured against the defending monster’s defense rating. Below is a graph showing how increases in hit rating increase the overall chance of hitting a monster of an equal level.[9]

投入 5 点属性点（相当于一个等级）可使角色获得 25 点攻击力，即横坐标。角色等级是玩家可控的另一个影响角色物理攻击命中率的因素。下图展示了在攻击力保持不变的情况下，等级提升如何影响命中率。[ 10 ]

Investing five stat points (one level’s worth) gets a character 25 points of AR, which is the subject of the x-axis. Character level is the other factor under the player’s control that affects a character’s chances to hit with a physical attack. Below is a graph that shows how gaining levels affects hit chances if attack rating remains static.[10]

第二张图中的直线斜率更缓，尽管仅凭肉眼很难分辨。即使角色等级比目标怪物高出30级，命中率也仅提升约12个百分点。即便如此，玩家角色仍然很难击中等级高于自身的敌人，而更容易击中等级低于自身的敌人。虽然用户界面中从未明确说明，但角色职业之间的区别之一在于等级对其命中率的影响方式。某些职业在进行物理攻击时会获得“有效等级”加成。例如，15级的野蛮人进行近战攻击时，其命中率会被视为35级。这通常会使命中率提升约9个百分点（表1.1）。

The slope of the line in the second graph is shallower, although it can be hard to tell just by looking. Even after gaining 30 levels relative to the character’s target monster, the chances of hitting only go up by about 12 percentage points. Still, player characters will have a hard time hitting enemies that are a higher level than they are, and an easier time hitting enemies that are a lower level. Although it is never spelled out anywhere in the UI, one of the ways that character classes differ is in the way that level is applied to their hit ratings. Certain classes get bonuses to their “effective level” when making a physical attack. For example, a level 15 Barbarian making a melee attack is treated (for the purposes of hit rating) as though he were actually level 35. That’s usually worth about nine percentage points in the chance-to-hit rating (Table 1.1).

这些加成大多合情合理。最常近战的三个角色——野蛮人、圣骑士和刺客——都获得了显著的有效等级加成。与此同时，施法者在攻击时会受到惩罚，因为他们本来就不应该频繁攻击。问题在于亚马逊和德鲁伊这两个中间职业，但我们会在各自的职业场景中进行探讨。

These bonuses mostly make sense. The three characters that tend to fight up close the most often, the Barbarian, Paladin, and Assassin, all get significant bonuses to their effective level. The casters, meanwhile, are penalized when attacking since they really should not be doing so very often. It’s the middle two classes, Amazon and Druid, that have problems, but we’ll see about those in the respective class situations.

灵巧度、等级和格挡率

Dexterity, Level, and Block Rate

敏捷属性也影响防御和格挡，这两种模拟技能表面上目的相同，但实际上彼此独立运作。防御和格挡率都负责抵挡敌人的物理攻击，使其免受伤害。它们对法术没有影响，法术的效果由元素抗性决定。玩家的防御机制与敌人完全相同，区别在于玩家可以将敏捷属性纳入考量。然而，敏捷属性的贡献并不大。

Dexterity also contributes to defense and blocking, two simulated skills that serve the same ostensible purpose, but which operate independently of one another. Both defense and block rates are responsible for deflecting enemy physical attacks so that they do no damage. Neither has any effect on spells, which are instead governed by elemental resistances. Defense works exactly the same way for the players as it does for the enemies, except that players get to factor dexterity into the equation. The contribution of dexterity isn’t much, however.

基础防御等级= (敏捷/4) [ 12 ]

Base Defense Rating = (Dexterity/4)[12]

即使是亚马逊战士和投掷野蛮人（他们投入大量点数到敏捷上），敏捷属性提供的防御力也只相当于圣骑士从一顶不错的头盔或靴子中获得的防御力。所有这些敏捷属性对防御力的提升并不显著。此外，防御力本身也并非十分有用。防御等级只在玩家角色行走或站立时生效（奔跑时无效），而且在60级之后，想要获得足够高的防御等级来发挥显著作用就非常困难了。借助野蛮人的“铁皮术”或圣骑士的“反抗光环”等技能，防御力可以提升到足以提供真正保护的程度。仅仅依靠装备和敏捷属性来获得可观的防御力需要大量的装备收集，我们将在本书的第三部分详细介绍。

Even Amazons and Throw-Barbarians (who put lots of extra points into dexterity) only get the same amount of defense from their dexterity stat that a Paladin gets from a decent helm or boots. All that dexterity isn’t really helping the defense stat much. Moreover, defense itself is not that useful. Defense rating only works while the player character is walking or standing (not running), and it’s very difficult to get a high enough defense rating for it to help much after level 60. With a skill like the Barbarian’s Iron Skin or Paladin’s Defiance Aura, defense can be augmented to the point that it offers real protection. Getting a significant amount of defense from items and dexterity alone requires some serious item farming, but we’ll cover that in the third section of this book.

格挡技能更有可能为玩家提供显著的保护，尽管它也有其缺点。任何装备盾牌的角色（或拥有武器格挡技能的刺客）都可以格挡来袭的物理攻击。影响格挡等级的因素是盾牌自身的格挡属性，该属性与盾牌的防御等级是分开的。

The block skill is much more likely to provide significant protection to a player, although it has its drawbacks. Any character that equips a shield (or an Assassin with the Weapon Block skill) can block incoming physical attacks. The primary contributor to the block rating is the shield’s own block stat, which is separate from that shield’s defense rating.

影响格挡率的另一个可由玩家控制的因素是灵巧度。灵巧度对格挡率的提升远大于对防御力的提升，但所需的投入也较高。格挡率最高可达75%。

The other component in block rating over which the player has control is dexterity. Dexterity improves block rates a lot more than it improves defense, although the required investment is high. Block rate maxes out at 75%.

下面有两个图表，因为有两个重要的动态因素需要考察。首先，通过提升敏捷属性达到 75% 格挡率比通过任何防御手段达到 75% 闪避（护甲）等级要容易得多。第一个图表中，玩家角色的等级保持不变。第二个图表显示了随着玩家角色等级提升，格挡率的变化情况。[ 13 , 14 ]

Below there are two graphs because there are two important dynamics to examine. First, it’s a lot easier to reach 75% block by investing in dexterity than it is to reach 75% evasion (armor) rating via defense via any means. In the first graph, the player-character’s level is static. The second graph shows what happens to block rate as the player character gains levels.[13,14]

除非玩家大量投入敏捷属性，否则格挡率实际上会随着玩家等级的提升而下降。对于一些敏捷属性较高的角色来说，这并非什么大问题，但对于那些敏捷属性投入不高的职业而言，这种机制迫使玩家寻找更高等级的盾牌，以更高的格挡率弥补敏捷属性的不足。（实际上，所有职业都能从更高等级的盾牌中受益，但对于那些敏捷属性投入不高的职业来说，这种需求更为迫切。）事实上，不同职业在使用盾牌方面的差异远不止敏捷属性投入那么简单。职业本身就拥有类似于命中率修正的格挡率修正机制。任何盾牌的格挡率都有10个百分点的波动范围。例如，如果玩家给角色装备小型盾牌，施法者职业（女巫、死灵法师和德鲁伊）的基础格挡率为 20%，圣骑士的基础格挡率为 30%，而刺客、亚马逊和野蛮人的基础格挡率则介于两者之间，为 25%。

Block rates actually go down as the player gains levels unless the player is investing heavily in dexterity. For some dexterity-heavy characters, this isn’t a huge problem, but for classes that aren’t stacking tons of dexterity, this dynamic forces players to find higher-level shields whose higher block rates can mitigate the lack of dexterity. (Really, all classes benefit from higher-level shields, but the need is greater for classes that don’t invest much in dexterity.) Indeed, the class-based differences in shield usage run deeper than dexterity investment. The classes themselves have block rate modifiers that operate similar to the hit rating modifiers. Any given shield has a 10 percentage-point spread for its block rate. For example, if the player equips their character with a Small Shield, the caster classes (Sorceress, Necromancer, and Druid) have a base block rate of 20%, the Paladin has a 30% base block rate, and the Assassin, Amazon, and Barbarian will fall in between at 25%.

技能

Skills

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，技能本身也有等级，玩家可以提升这些等级。每次角色升级，都会获得一个技能点，可以投入到任何已解锁的技能中。这在角色扮演游戏（RPG）的历史上并非独一无二；即使是像《魔兽世界》、《巫师》、 《上古卷轴5：天际》和《杀出重围》系列这样的当代游戏也采用了类似的机制。 《暗黑破坏神II》的独特之处在于玩家可以投入技能点的次数。游戏中的每个技能都可以升级20次，尽管很多技能的升级收益并不高。

In Diablo II, skills themselves have levels that the player can improve. Every time a character gains a level, they gain one skill point that can be invested into any unlocked skill. This is not unique in the history of RPGs; even contemporary games like World of Warcraft, The Witcher, Skyrim, and the Deus Ex series use this mechanic. What’s unusual about Diablo II is the number of times a player can invest in a single skill. Every skill in the game can be leveled up 20 times, although many skills make for very poor investments.

每一点的结果都相当显著。下一页下方，我可视化展示了几个职业的主要技能伤害增长情况。[ 15 , 16 ]

The results of each point are fairly significant as well. Below the next page I have visualized the growth in damage of some of the major skills from a few classes.[15,16]

怪物生命值的增长基本呈线性，尽管法术在后期略有加速。看到这张图表，最自然的反应是：怪物生命值的线性增长是否会抵消玩家角色技能强度的任何提升？答案比较复杂。在第一难度下，以及第二难度下的大部分时间里，集中投资于最强技能确实能提升玩家的杀伤力。但在游戏后半段，技能的不足会逐渐削弱玩家原本就微弱的杀伤力。此时，玩家必须综合运用装备、技能和策略，但这部分内容将在本书第三部分详细探讨。

The growth is mostly linear, although spells have a little bit of increased slope at the end. The most natural response to this graph is to wonder if the linear growth of monster HP will simply neutralize any gains the player character makes in skill power. The answer is complicated. For the first difficulty setting, and a large part of the second difficulty setting, focused investment in the best skills will give the player increased killing power. In the second half of the game, deficits start to eat away at the player’s marginal killing power. At that point, the player has to synthesize gear, skills, and good strategy, but that is the domain of part three of this book.

元素可用性

Elemental Availability

角色职业之间最后一个主要的系统性区别在于每个职业可使用的元素技能类型。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，攻击可以拥有六种元素属性，其中包括物理伤害。每个职业都可以使用几种元素，但没有哪个职业能够使用全部元素（表1.2）。

The last major, systemic difference between the character classes is the types of elemental abilities available to each. Including physical-type damage, there are six elemental attributes an attack can have in Diablo II. Each class has access to a few elements; none has access to all of them (Table 1.2).

（请注意，此表格包含可行的角色构筑。刺客的暗影技艺虽然拥有魔法伤害，但无法直接击杀敌人。刺客和亚马逊也都拥有毒素伤害，但他们的毒素伤害技能几乎都被弃用，因此未计入在内。）

(Note that this table is made up of viable builds. The Assassin has magic damage in the Shadow Arts but doesn’t kill with it. The Assassin and Amazon both have poison damage as well, but their poison damage skills are almost universally deprecated, and are not counted.)

你可以看到各个职业在元素可用性方面展现出极大的差异性，重叠部分很少。六种元素足以让七个职业（以及十几种可能的流派）在元素优势和劣势方面各具特色。的确，某些职业比其他职业更能将技能点分配到多个技能树上。“流星”女巫、龙卷风/飓风德鲁伊、狂暴野蛮人和陷阱刺客——这些职业都可以混合两种元素。大多数流派如果没有特定的装备组合，就无法混合三种元素，这维持了游戏的平衡性。

You can see how the classes exhibit a great deal of variety in terms of elemental availability, and how there’s not a lot of overlap. Six elements are more than enough to make seven classes (and more than a dozen possible builds) distinct in their elemental strengths and weaknesses. Yes, certain classes have a greater ability to split their skill points up between multiple trees than others. The “Meteorb” Sorceress, Tornado/Hurricane Druids, Berserk Barbarians, and Traps Assassins—all of these can mix two elements. Most builds cannot mix three elements without having a very specific gear set, which maintains the game’s balance.

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，元素系统仅决定哪些生物或角色会受到更多或更少的敌人攻击伤害。这种平衡基本遵循角色扮演游戏的传统，尽管偶尔会出现一些反直觉的元素免疫机制。在大多数角色扮演游戏中，一种生物如果弱于某种元素，就会克制其对立元素——例如，冰系生物弱于火焰，克制寒冷。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，有时确实如此（某些类型的敌人，例如堕落者，都具有火焰抗性），但元素之间的强弱关系往往难以理解。由于怪物词缀是程序生成的，因此敌人可以同时完全免疫火焰和冰霜伤害。虽然任何独特的敌人几乎都可以带有任何元素词缀，但游戏中大多数元素抗性都是固定的。以下图表展示了最高难度下各种元素抗性的出现频率——在这个难度下，元素抗性变得非常普遍。[ 17 ]

In Diablo II, the elemental system governs only which creatures or characters take greater or lesser damage from enemy attacks. The balance is mostly orthodox to the RPG tradition, although immunities are occasionally applied in counterintuitive ways. In most RPGs, a creature that is vulnerable to one element is strong against its opposite—icy creatures are vulnerable to fire, and strong against cold, for example. Sometimes that is true in Diablo II (certain families of enemy, like the Fallen, share fire resistance), but often elemental strengths and weaknesses don’t make any intuitive sense. Thanks to the procedural addition of monster affixes, an enemy can spawn completely immune to fire and ice damage alike. While any unique enemy can spawn with almost any elemental modifier, most of the elemental resistances in the game are fixed. Below are graphs that visualize the prevalence of resistances on the highest difficulty setting—the point at which elemental resistances become common.[17]

这里可以观察到几个重要的趋势。首先，对非元素魔法和物理伤害的免疫远不如对火焰、冰霜和闪电的抗性常见。然而，这种现象与游戏中威力强大的火焰、冰霜和闪电攻击的普遍性成正比。这三种元素占玩家可使用的所有法术或攻击类型的49%。但是，那些虽然没有达到免疫的程度，却仍然很普遍的抗性又该如何解释呢？数据很明确：在最高难度下，物理抗性极其常见（尽管在该难度下所有抗性的数值都更高）。在某种程度上，这合情合理。物理伤害是最常见的伤害类型；只有女巫职业缺乏依赖物理伤害的可行构筑。但这种现象似乎存在一个巨大的疏忽。物理伤害本身就受到另一种减伤机制的影响。造成物理伤害的技能几乎总是会受到攻击等级的限制。这本身就是一个劣势；火焰魔法或许会被怪物抵抗，但除非玩家瞄准失误，否则这些法术不会落空。虽然在《暗黑破坏神II》后期有一些流派可以让物理伤害发挥作用，但这些流派的构建难度更高，而且并没有多少弥补这一缺陷的手段。这一点在使用弓箭的亚马逊战士身上会尤为突出。

There are a couple of important trends visible here. First, immunities to non-elemental magic and physical damage are much less common than resistances to fire, cold, and lightning. This dynamic is in proportion with the prevalence of extremely powerful fire, cold and lightning attacks in the game, however. These three elements make up 49% of all types of spells or attacks the player can use. But what about resistances that don’t reach the level of immunity, and yet are still widespread? The data are clear: physical resistance is extremely common on the highest difficulty setting (although all resistances are higher on that setting). To a certain degree, this makes sense. Physical damage is the most common type of damage; only the Sorceress class lacks a viable build which depends on physical damage. But there seems to be a huge oversight with regards to this dynamic. Physical damage is already subject to another form of mitigation. Skills which deal physical damage are almost always subject to attack rating. This is a disadvantage already; fire magic might be resisted by monsters, but those spells don’t miss unless the player aims poorly. Although there are builds that make physical damage viable in late-game Diablo II, those builds are a lot harder to make and don’t offer much in the way of compensation for that fact. This is a flaw that we’ll see come to particular prominence in the bow-using amazon.

协同效应

Synergies

在高等级游戏中，大多数职业都依赖少数几个技能来造成大部分伤害。如果这些技能只能投入20点技能点，那么玩家该如何处理多余的技能点呢？技能协同机制允许一个技能强化另一个技能，让玩家能够以一种既能强化主要技能又能提升其他技能效果的方式来分配技能点。

At high levels, most classes rely on a small number of skills to deal the bulk of their damage. If those skills can only receive 20 skill points worth of investment, what does the player do with surplus skill points? The skill synergy allows one skill to enhance another, allowing players to invest skill points in a way that still enhances their primary skills.

说到技能协同，不同职业之间的主要区别在于协同的线性程度和数量。线性协同指的是技能树上沿线性方向的协同效果。例如，女巫的暴风雪技能与冰霜箭、寒冰箭和冰川尖刺都有协同效果；这三个技能是学习暴风雪的先决条件，因此它们与暴风雪“一脉相承”。当玩家最终投入点数学习暴风雪时，女巫的暴风雪伤害至少已经提升了15%。协同的第二个重要方面是其数量和数量。暴风雪有三个直接协同效果，平均每投入一点技能点可获得5%的伤害加成。 （例如，暴雪有三个线性协同效果，每点协同效果提升5%。）这意味着，玩家如果将所有可用点数都投入到暴雪协同效果中，最高可获得300%的法术伤害加成。物品提供的技能加成不计入协同效果，但20级以上的技能伤害成长曲线更为陡峭，使得协同效果更有价值。因此，某些职业由于其协同效果的线性和高倍率，在伤害方面拥有巨大的优势。

When it comes to synergies, the big difference between classes comes down to the linearity, number degree of their synergies. A linear synergy is any synergy that takes place linearly across a skill tree. For example, the Sorceress’s Blizzard skill has synergies from the Frost Bolt, Cold Bolt, and Glacial Spike; those three skills are prerequisites for learning Blizzard, so they are “in line” with the skill. When the player finally does invest in Blizzard, the Sorceress already has a minimum of 15% bonus to its damage. The second important aspect of synergies is their number and degree. Blizzard benefits from three direct synergies, with an average amount of 5% damage per point invested. (I.e., Blizzard has three linear synergies, and their degree is 5% per point.) This means that a player investing all available points into Blizzard synergies might gain as much as a 300% bonus to the damage of the spell. Itemized skill bonuses don’t contribute to synergies, but skill damage above level 20 is a little steeper in terms of damage growth, making synergies more valuable. Thus, certain classes have huge advantages in damage because of the linearity and degree of their synergies.

协同效应对职业的影响并非总是完全量化的。例如，野蛮人的几个战斗技能依赖于非线性的协同效应。“专注”和“狂暴”都能从战吼技能树中获得大量的魔法伤害加成，而战吼技能树与战斗技能树完全独立。然而，野蛮人确实需要这些战吼技能来进行增益和群体控制。虽然野蛮人无法像女巫那样将技能点数集中到线性协同效应上，但他的协同效应鼓励玩家投资于实用性强的技能。这是野蛮人设计理念的一部分，即需要将移动和群体控制技能与主要攻击技能结合使用。玩家通常会围绕一个核心技能来构建女巫角色，然后专注于提升该技能的伤害。对于野蛮人来说，这种策略并不奏效，而协同效应也反映了这一点。同样，死灵法师的诅咒技能树完全没有协同效应。即使是最强的诅咒也无法杀死大多数敌人，因此玩家需要将其与其他攻击技能搭配使用。虽然毒素新星技能可以与其他毒素技能产生协同效应，但它最佳的搭配（可以称之为“软协同”）来自降低抗性诅咒，这使其造成的伤害远超正常水平。因此，所有对职业协同效应的分析都会考虑这些协同效应（或缺乏协同效应）对角色意味着什么。

The impact of synergies on character classes is not always strictly quantitative. For example, several of the Barbarian’s combat abilities rely on synergies that are non-linear. Both Concentrate and Berserk receive significant amounts of magic damage from skills in the Warcries tree, which is completely independent of the Combat Abilities tree. The Barbarian really does need those Warcries for buffing and crowd control purposes, however. While the Barbarian can’t stack points into linear synergies the way that a Sorceress can, his synergies encourage the player to invest in skills with great utility value. This is part of the Barbarian’s design philosophy, which requires the use of a movement and crowd control skill in conjunction with a main attack skill. Players tend to build their Sorceresses around one big skill, and then focus on inflating the damage of that skill. For the Barbarian, that strategy doesn’t work quite as well, and the synergies reflect it. Similarly, the Necromancer’s Curses skill tree lacks synergies entirely. Even the strongest curses won’t kill most enemies, so the player needs to pair them with another offensive skill. Although the Poison Nova skill gets synergies from other poison skills, its best complement (what you might call a “soft synergy”) comes from the Lower Resist curse, which allows it to do a lot more damage than it normally would. Accordingly, all analysis of a class’s synergies will try to take into account what those synergies (or lack of them) mean for the character.

在深入探讨各个职业之前，我想最后说明一点：我只分析了每个职业最常见的几种构筑方式。我不会深入研究一些非主流（但可行）的构筑机制，例如双投野蛮人、旋风刺客或“牙医”死灵法师。即便不涉及这些构筑，我所分析的构筑方式也已经涵盖了每个职业的大部分机制。

As a last note before diving into the character classes, I want to point out that I have only analyzed the most common builds of each class. I don’t delve into the mechanics of unorthodox (but viable) builds like the Double Throw Barbarian, the Whirlwind Assassin or the “Dentist” Necromancer. Even without them, most of the mechanics of each class are represented by the builds I do cover.

角色职业

Character Classes

亚马逊

Amazon

流派：2 – 弓箭亚马逊（使用弓箭和弓/弩技能树）和标枪亚马逊（使用标枪和标枪技能树）

Builds: 2 – Bowazon (uses bows and the bow/crossbow skill tree) and Javazon (uses javelins and the javelin skill tree)

弓箭亚马逊流派

Bowazon Build

增强力量：远程攻击，灵巧性带来的两大好处

Build strength: Long range, two benefits from dexterity

构建弱点：伤害低，没有法术，需要投入的技能点太多

Build weakness: Low damage, no spells, too many skills to invest in

元素可用性：中等

Elemental availability: Moderate

协同效应：高级技能效果差，只能从另一个技能中获得中等程度的伤害加成，而且技能点数不足，无法充分利用这种加成。

Synergies: Poor, top-level skills only gain moderate damage from one other skill, and there aren’t enough skill points to spare to take advantage of it

概述：弓箭亚马逊的设计基于经典角色扮演游戏的平衡机制。然而，《暗黑破坏神II》并非一款依赖这些机制的游戏，因此弓箭亚马逊相对于其他职业而言略显弱势。

Overview: The Bowazon is built on classical RPG checks and balances. Unfortunately, Diablo II is not the kind of game that relies on those things, and so the Bowazon ends up a little underpowered relative to her peers.

弓箭亚马逊最大的优势在于其远距离攻击以及敏捷带来的双重增益。正如我们将在后续章节中看到的，暗黑破坏神II中远程攻击的有效距离并非完全相同。圣骑士施放祝福之锤时必须位于目标区域的中心；德鲁伊施放飓风时也必须位于中心；即使是标枪亚马逊，也需要相当近的距离才能稳定命中闪电法术。而弓箭亚马逊，如同陷阱刺客和女巫一样，可以保持相当远的距离，享受这种距离带来的安全感。

The great, intrinsic advantages of the Bowazon are her long range and the fact that two benefits are gained from dexterity. As we’ll see with several classes, ranged attacks in Diablo II are not all equal in effective distance. The Paladin has to be at the center of his target area when casting the Blessed Hammer. The Druid has to be at the center of his Hurricane. Even the Javazon has to be fairly close to reliably hit with her Lightning spells. The Bowazon, like the Traps Assassin and the Sorceress, can sit back at quite a distance, and enjoy the safety that distance affords.

弓箭亚马逊还能额外获得强力女武神仆从的保护，用来吸引敌人的注意力。在高等级时，女武神非常耐打，甚至可以扛住首领相当长一段时间的攻击，尽管她难以控制首领的仇恨。（理论上，标枪亚马逊也可以召唤女武神，但弓箭亚马逊的攻击范围更广，因此女武神对后者来说更有用。）弓箭亚马逊的另一个优势在于她可以从敏捷属性中获得双重收益。正如我们在敏捷部分所看到的，如果玩家选择堆叠敏捷，那么该属性对命中率的贡献相当可观。由于弓箭亚马逊的伤害输出也与敏捷挂钩，因此她可以将大部分属性点投入到敏捷上。然而，我们最终会发现，这种双重优势并不足以弥补其他方面的不足。

The Bowazon even gets to add the extra protection of having the beefy Valkyrie minion to distract enemies. At high levels, the Valkyrie is hearty enough that it can even tank bosses for a reasonable amount of time, although it has trouble controlling boss aggro. (Technically, the Javazon can also employ a Valkyrie, but the greater range of the Bowazon makes the Valkyrie a little more useful for the latter build.) The Bowazon’s other advantage is her ability to gain two benefits from dexterity. As we saw in the section on dexterity, the stat’s contribution to hit rating is considerable if the player chooses to stack a lot of it. Because the Bowazon’s damage output is also tied to dexterity, she can spend most of her points on it. The problem that we’ll end up seeing is that this double advantage simply isn’t as strong as it needs to be in order to make up for other weaknesses.

弓箭亚马逊最大的弱点是她的技能和武器威力不足。后期弓箭亚马逊可能使用的三大技能——冰冻箭、焚身箭和扫射——造成的伤害并不高。[ 18 ]

The Bowazon’s biggest weakness is that her skills and weapons aren’t powerful enough. The big three skills a late-game Bowazon might use, Freezing Arrow, Immolation Arrow, and Strafe simply don’t do that much damage.[18]

我可视化了几个高级远程技能的伤害，并加入了它们的主要协同效果。弓箭亚马逊的技能伤害较低。可视化的其他技能是法术。与弓箭亚马逊的射击不同，法术永远不会落空（只要动画击中敌人的图像）。公平地说，由于亚马逊的技能是攻击，它们也会获得武器伤害，而这些伤害并未在此处可视化。但物理抗性是最常见的抗性类型，而弓箭的威力并不算强。下方和右侧是一些弓箭和近战武器的对比。[ 19 ]

I’ve visualized the damage of several high-level ranged skills, adding in the main synergies for them. The Bowazon skills come out lower. The other skills visualized are spells. Unlike Bowazon shots, spells never miss (as long as the animation connects with the enemy sprite). To be fair, because the Amazon skills are attacks, they also gain weapon damage not visualized here. But physical resistance is the most common type of resistance, and bows are just not that strong. Below and to the right is a comparison of some bows and melee weapons.[19]

请注意，近战武器都是单手武器，但它们的伤害仍然高于弓箭。这意味着近战角色单手造成的DPS比弓箭手更高。两人一组，意味着他们可以装备盾牌或其他武器。游戏中确实有一些弓箭可以弥补部分伤害差距，尤其是通过极高的攻击速度，但法师也能获得带有技能加成和施法速度提升词缀的精英武器，因此差距依然存在。

Note that the melee weapons are one-handed weapons, and they still surpass bows. That means melee characters are doing more DPS with one hand than Bowazons are with two, meaning they can equip a shield or another weapon. There are definitely bows in the game that make up some of the damage gap, especially through means of very high attack speed, but casters get elite weapons that offer +skill affixes and faster cast rate modifiers, too, so the gap remains.

真正的问题在于，弓箭是传统平衡机制的受害者，而这种机制在《暗黑破坏神II》这样的游戏中显得格格不入。远程武器因其远距离射击带来的安全优势而受到惩罚。在传统的桌面角色扮演游戏中，这种惩罚是合理的；平衡是优秀设计的基本原则。然而，在那些遵循这一原则的角色扮演游戏中，弓箭手角色并非独自承担消灭成群恶魔的重任。在这些游戏中，弓箭手通常会选择最危险的目标，并进行战术性击杀，而坦克和近战职业则负责消灭其他敌人。但这在《暗黑破坏神II》中面对成群的恶魔时却行不通。正如我们所见，亚马逊的弓箭和技能都逊色于其他职业。游戏中最好的弓箭伤害足以让弓箭亚马逊与其他职业相媲美，但获得这些弓箭需要击杀大量的敌人——而以亚马逊相对较低的战斗力来说，这几乎是不可能完成的任务！

The real problem is that bows are the victim of traditional balance mechanics that are out of place in a game like Diablo II. Ranged weapons face a penalty for the safety they provide by firing at long range. In an orthodox tabletop RPG, they should incur a penalty; that balance is a basic tenet of good design. In the RPGs from which this tenet comes, however, bow-using characters aren’t responsible for killing hordes of demons by themselves. In those games, bow-users tend to pick the most dangerous targets and eliminate them tactically while the tanks and melee fighters kill everything else. That’s not a viable strategy against the demonic hordes of Diablo II. As we’ve seen, both amazon bows and amazon abilities fall short of their peers. The most elite bows in the game do enough damage to make the Bowazon comparable to other classes, but obtaining them involves killing hordes and hordes of enemies—which is hard to do with her relatively lower power!

弓箭亚马逊或许在两方面可以赶上其他职业：命中率和实用/防御技能。弓箭亚马逊的所有伤害技能都是攻击技能，因此都受攻击等级影响（引导箭除外）。但是，尽管亚马逊可以堆叠敏捷，她们的命中率并没有比其他职业高出多少。主要原因是她们的武器和技能对攻击等级的提升并不显著。正如我们在攻击等级部分所看到的，亚马逊的攻击有效等级较低，与近战职业相比，命中率大约低5个百分点。敏捷属性可以带来不错的提升，使她们的命中率恢复到原来的14个百分点左右。除此之外，命中率的提升主要取决于武器和技能。[ 20 ]

There are two places in which the Bowazon might catch up to the other classes: hit rating and in utility/defense skills. All of the Bowazon’s damage skills are attacks, and are therefore subject to attack rating (except for Guided Arrow). But, for all their dexterity stacking, amazons don’t hit significantly more often than other classes. The biggest reason for this is that neither their weapons nor their skills add that much to attack rating. As we saw in the section on attack rating, the amazon has a lower effective level when striking, losing her about fivepercentage points of hit rating vs the melee classes. Her dexterity provides a nice boost, gaining her back about 14 percentage points. After that, it’s all up to weapons and skills.[20]

她的技能并没有让她比其他职业拥有显著优势。此外，她的技能提供的伤害倍率也远低于其他职业。技能，尤其是考虑到近战职业使用的武器更好。不过，被动技能仍然需要考虑。[ 21 ]

Her skills do not provide her with a significant advantage versus other classes. Moreover, they provide a significantly lower damage multiplier than those other skills, especially when we remember that those melee classes are using better weapons. There are still passive skills to consider, however.[21]

穿透技能虽然能与其他技能相媲美，但其优势并不足以弥补自身最大的缺陷。这里没有提到的是，野蛮人的武器精通、圣骑士的狂热和刺客的利爪精通除了提供命中等级外，还能为角色提供伤害和/或攻击速度。而穿透技能只提供攻击等级。相比之下，亚马逊弓箭的被动技能实在太弱了。设计者们为了弥补弓箭亚马逊的射程不足而做得过头了，而他们并没有对标枪亚马逊、陷阱刺客、死灵法师和元素德鲁伊这样做。

Penetrate keeps up with the other skills, but it doesn’t outpace them by an amount that would balance its big flaw. What’s not shown here is that Barbarian Weapon Mastery, Paladin Fanaticism, and Assassin Claw Mastery all also provide the character with damage and/or attack speed in addition to hit rating. Penetrate only provides attack rating. Comparatively, the amazon bow passive is just too weak. The designers have simply overcompensated for the Bowazon’s range in a way they don’t do for Javazons, Traps Assassins, Necromancers, and Elemental Druids.

理论上，如果弓箭亚马逊的技能比其他职业拥有更多选择，所有这些问题都可以避免。这似乎是设计者的初衷，但实际上却无法弥补她其他方面的不足。亚马逊拥有一整套被动技能和魔法技能，可以很好地补充她的弓箭技能。如果弓箭亚马逊能够投入大量点数，像减速飞弹、暴击、穿透、穿刺、闪避和躲避这样的技能将会非常实用。但她做不到。弓箭亚马逊需要投入20点到主要元素箭矢上，再投入20点到扫射上，才能造成可观的伤害，然后再投入20点到女武神上。大多数玩家还喜欢投资一些辅助技能，比如穿刺或引导箭。考虑到这些技能的前置条件，弓箭亚马逊几乎没有剩余的点数来投资防御技能或暴击，这显然是不够的。或许，弓箭亚马逊的职业专属装备正是为此而设计的。即使掉落的是普通品质的弓箭，亚马逊专属弓箭也会将点数加到所有弓箭和弩箭技能上。玩家难道应该把点数从弓箭技能中节省下来，重新分配到被动技能上吗？这显然行不通。弓箭技能的伤害和攻击等级加成太低，所以玩家必须把它们全部点满。这似乎又是弓箭亚马逊平衡性失衡的又一个例子，迫使她依赖于所有职业都想要的精英装备，但并非所有职业都需要这些装备。职业需求。这些问题并非致命缺陷；该流派仍然可以玩，但大多数情况下，其他流派都避免了这类系统性缺陷。

In theory, all of this could be avoided if the Bowazon’s skills gave her more options than other classes have. It seems that this was the designers’ intent, but in practice it doesn’t compensate for her other shortcomings. The Amazon has an entire skill tree of passive and magic skills that could complement her bow skills reasonably well. Skills like Slow Missiles, Critical Strike, Penetrate, Pierce, Evade, and Dodge would be great if the Bowazon could afford to invest in them heavily. She cannot. Bowazons need to invest 20 points into their main elemental arrow and another 20 into Strafe if they hope to deal any significant damage at all, and then another 20 into Valkyrie. Most players also like to invest in utility skills like Pierce or Guided Arrow. With the prerequisites for those skills, the build barely has any spare points to invest in defensive skills or Critical Strike, and that just isn’t enough. Perhaps this is where the Bowazon’s class-specific items are supposed to come into play. Even as normal-quality drops, the Amazon-only bows put points into all Bow and Crossbow skills. Is the player supposed to save points in bow skills and reallocate into passive skills? It wouldn’t work. The damage and attack rating bonuses in bow skills are too low, so the player must max them out. It appears to be yet another case of over-balancing the Bowazon, forcing her to rely on the elite items that every class wants, but not every class needs. These problems are not fatal; the build is still playable, but for the most part, other builds avoided these kinds of systemic pitfalls.

Javazon 构建

Javazon Build

构建强度：中等范围，核心属性提供两项增益，造成大量溅射伤害

Build strength: Medium range, two benefits from core stat, massive splash damage

弱点：几乎所有伤害都来自单一元素类型

Build weakness: Almost all damage comes from one elemental type

元素可用性：差

Elemental availability: Poor

协同效应：闪电技能之间存在着巨大的线性协同效应，使得其中一些技能威力强大。

Synergies: The lightning skills are all part of a big linear synergy that makes several of them very powerful

概述：标枪亚马逊战士存在一些严重的局限性，但这些局限性在《暗黑破坏神II》的背景下是合理的。标枪亚马逊战士是远程职业，相对脆弱，但同时也非常强大。她最大的局限性在于几乎所有伤害都来自闪电属性攻击，这意味着在地狱难度下，大约有20%的敌人完全免疫她的闪电伤害。

Overview: The Javazon has serious limitations, but these limitations are appropriate to the Diablo II context. The Javazon is ranged and relatively fragile, but also very powerful. Her big limitation is that almost all of her damage comes from lightning-elemental attacks, meaning that roughly 20% of enemies on hell difficulty are simply immune to the damage she does.

通过一项改动，标枪亚马逊（Javazon）的构筑弥补了弓箭亚马逊（Boawazon）的不足。标枪亚马逊的几个最佳技能都是法术，因此必定命中。这样一来，标枪亚马逊就不必过于担心攻击等级，也不必担心敌人普遍存在的物理抗性问题。标枪亚马逊真正的缺点在于，她几乎所有的伤害都是闪电伤害，因此如果没有稀有的、可以降低抗性的装备，或者有能够帮她做到这一点的同伴，她就无法击杀闪电免疫的敌人。然而，这种限制在《暗黑破坏神II》中是合理的。标枪亚马逊既有可以利用的优势，也有需要规避的弱点。弓箭亚马逊则整体表现平平。例如，解决元素伤害获取困难的一个方法是避开闪电免疫的敌人；有很多地方都可以做到这一点。另一个方法是与能够降低敌人抗性的同伴同行，例如死灵法师或圣骑士。这正是《暗黑破坏神II》应该采用的限制，因为这款游戏的设计初衷就是多人游戏。然而，这种限制对弓箭亚马逊来说却行不通。游戏中没有哪个地方的攻击力不足​​不会成为问题，也没有任何队伍配置能让弓箭亚马逊比其他职业更有价值。

By making one change, the Javazon build corrects the shortcomings of the Bowazon build. Several of the best Javazon skills are spells, and therefore always hit. Thus, the Javazon doesn’t have to worry about attack rating as much, nor the extremely widespread resistance to physical damage. The real drawback for the Javazon is that she deals almost all of her damage as lightning, and therefore simply cannot kill enemies who are lightning immune without having rare, resistance-removing gear, or companions who can do that for her. This limitation is one that makes sense for Diablo II, however. The Javazon has a strength she can exploit, and a weakness she needs to avoid. The Bowazon is somewhat mediocre across the board. For instance, one solution to the elemental availability problem is to simply avoid lightning immunes; there are plenty of areas in which this is possible. The other solution is to journey with a companion who can lower enemy resistances, like a Necromancer or Paladin. This is exactly the kind of limitation Diablo II ought to employ, since the game was explicitly designed to be a multiplayer affair. This doesn’t work for the Bowazon, however. There’s no location in the game where having underpowered attacks isn’t a problem, and there is no party composition that can make a Bowazon more valuable than some other class might be.

标枪亚马逊的强大或许源于设计者们明知存在却无解的设计缺陷。与女巫一样，标枪亚马逊依赖多目标攻击，尤其是威力强大的闪电之怒。闪电之怒本身的伤害其实并不高；它的优势主要在于能够同时攻击多个目标——高等级时可攻击超过20个。闪电之怒似乎也与弓箭亚马逊的技能形成了“互补”。虽然它的攻击方式类似法术，但闪电之怒依赖的是攻击速度而非施法速度。攻击速度属性在装备上的出现频率远高于施法速度属性。弓箭亚马逊也能从更高的攻击速度中获益，但由于弓箭亚马逊的攻击威力较弱且经常落空，因此，这帮助不大。对于能横扫人群的巨大闪电爆炸来说，提升攻击速度非常有用，而且也比较容易获得。

It may be the case that the Javazon’s greater power is a product of a design problem which the designers knew about but had no solutions for. Like the Sorceress, the Javazon relies on multi-target attacks, especially the tremendous Lightning Fury. Lightning Fury doesn’t actually do a ton of damage on its own; most of its strength comes from the number of targets it can hit at one time—more than 20 at higher levels. Lightning Fury also seems to be the “other side of the coin” for Bowazon skills. Although it hits like a spell, Lightning Fury depends on attack speed rather than casting speed. Increased attack speed is an attribute found on items in much greater abundance than faster casting speed. Bowazons benefit from faster attack speed, too, but because that build uses weaker attacks that often miss, this isn’t as helpful. For a gigantic explosion of lightning that mows down crowds, increased attack speed is incredibly helpful, and fairly easy to find.

闪电之怒与闪电系中的其他几个技能有很多协同加成，使得标枪亚马逊的构筑很难出错。

Lightning Fury shares lots of synergy bonuses with several other skills in the lightning tree, making the Javazon build one which is hard to mess up.

你可以看到，这些强大的协同效应使得多个技能都能有效对付单个目标，而闪电之怒则能有效对付成群的敌人。这种线性协同效应也使得标枪亚马逊的职业专属装备能够发挥更大的作用。通过为沿着这条线性协同效应的每个技能加点，标枪亚马逊的专属武器也能触发所有相互关联的协同效应。为什么弓箭亚马逊的流派不能也采用这种机制呢？即使弓箭亚马逊的攻击距离更远，她的威力也不会因为射程优势而相应降低。

You can see how those big synergies allow several skills to be useful against single targets, while Lightning Fury is useful against crowds. The big linear synergy also allows the Javazon’s class-specific items to provide considerably more benefit. By adding points to every skill along that linear synergy, the Javazon-specific weapons also trigger all the interlocking synergies. Why couldn’t this have been the case for the Bowazon build? Even if the Bowazon fires from longer range, her power isn’t reduced proportionally to the advantage that range gives.

刺客

Assassin

构建：2：陷阱刺客，踢击刺客

Builds: 2: Trapsassin, kicksassin

陷阱刺客流派

Trapsassin Build

构建优势：远程法术伤害

Build strength: Long range, spell damage

弱点：在某些狭窄的走廊里，陷阱可能难以放置；火焰伤害的有效范围比闪电伤害要短。

Build weakness: Traps can be hard to place in certain tight corridors; fire damage has an effectively shorter range than lightning damage

元素可用性：中等，可造成大量火焰或闪电伤害

Elemental availability: Moderate, can deal great fire or lightning damage

协同效应：游戏中为数不多的多元素线性协同效应之一，赋予了陷阱刺客流派极高的伤害。

Synergies: One of the game’s few multi-element linear synergies gives the Trapsassin build some very high damage

概述：陷阱刺客擅长远程攻击，拥有两种主要的元素伤害来源。她召唤仆从的能力也能保护她自身，就像亚马逊的女武神保护该职业一样。然而，陷阱刺客使用的是法术伤害。和女巫一样，她可以置身事外，用法术消灭她甚至看不见的敌人。

Overview: The Trapsassin fires at long range and has two big sources of elemental damage. Her ability to summon a minion also protects her much like the amazon’s Valkyrie protects that class. The Trapsassin, however, uses spell damage. Like the Sorceress, she can sit back and let her spells melt enemies she can’t even see.

专精陷阱技能树的刺客就像死灵法师或女巫一样，可以轻松击中屏幕外的敌人。陷阱可以放置在拐角处，敌人无法锁定它们。陷阱可以独立于刺客的主要目标进行攻击，这既是优势也是劣势。诅咒——有时它们会攻击除最危险目标之外的其他目标。不过，陷阱刺客的射程非常惊人，这意味着她通常可以安心地坐在后方，看着自己的法术摧毁敌人。这套配置还能轻松获得两种元素伤害，足以应对游戏后期内容。这种伤害很大程度上依赖于陷阱技能树中强大的线性协同效应。

The Assassin who specializes in the Traps skill tree is like the Necromancer or Sorceress, who can easily hit enemies who aren’t even on screen. Traps can be placed around corners and they cannot be targeted by the enemy. They can attack independently of the Assassin’s primary target, which is a blessing and a curse—sometimes they’ll fire on a target other than the one which is the most dangerous. Still, though, their impressive range means that the Trapsassin can usually sit back comfortably while her spells destroy the enemy. This build also has easy access to two elements with enough damage to handle endgame content. This damage depends heavily on the large linear synergies in the traps skill tree.

每个技能的协同效果都非常丰富，但尤其值得一提的是“火焰冲击”技能，它可以通过协同效果获得高达700%的伤害提升。该技能本身造成火焰伤害，却能从由闪电和火焰技能组成的强大线性协同效果中获益。因此，陷阱刺客可以造成两种类型的伤害，且伤害量足以应对游戏后期。

The synergies for every skill are abundant, but of particular note is the skill Fire Blast, which can gain up to 700% damage increase from its synergies. That skill deals fire damage, and yet it benefits from a huge linear synergy made up of both lightning and fire skills. Thus, the Trapsassin can deal two types of damage in amounts viable for the endgame.

与法杖、魔杖和钉头锤一样，爪类武器通常带有技能加成，即使是低级商人出售的装备也不例外。但与这些武器不同的是，爪类武器通常带有类别加成，而非特定技能加成。

Like staves, wands, and maces, the claw class of weapons frequently comes with +skill modifiers, even on gear that can be purchased from low-level vendors. Unlike those weapons, however, these weapons usually come with category bonuses rather than specific skill bonuses.

一些魔法法杖、魔杖和死灵法师的副手物品会提供类别加成，但爪类物品更常见的是技能树或所有技能树+1 。蓝色装备上的刺客技能。类别加成如此普遍，可能是由于刺客庞大且环环相扣的协同技能树，或是踢击刺客需要使用的众多连招所致。

Some magical staves, wands, and Necromancer off-hand items have categorical bonuses, but it’s a lot more common on claws to see +1 to a skill tree or all Assassin skills on blue items. The prevalence of categorical bonuses is probably a product of the Assassin’s huge, interlocking synergy tree, or the many combos that Kicksassins have to use.

踢击刺客出装

Kicksassin Build

增强实力：多种伤害类型，终结技具有各种实用效果

Build strength: Lots of types of damage, finishing moves with a variety of practical effects

弱点：不如圣骑士或野蛮人那样强壮，防御技能需要比其他近战职业更多的微操。

Build weakness: Not as rugged as Paladin or Barbarian, defensive skills require more micromanagement than in other melee classes

元素伤害可用性：极高——可造成大量的冰霜、火焰、闪电或物理伤害，外加攻击等级加成，确保能够实际命中。

Elemental availability: Very high—significant amounts of cold, fire, lightning, or physical damage, plus the attack rating bonuses to actually hit with them

协同效应：没有大型的线性协同链，但技能协同效应与被动技能协同效应相结合，可以显著提升踢击刺客的实力。

Synergies: No big linear synergy chains, but skill synergies mixed with passive skill synergies power the Kicksassin up considerably

概述：踢击刺客是一名近战战士，拥有多种攻击手段，其中许多都带有元素属性。她的终结技效果实用，而暗影纪律技能则赋予她在战场上极强的辅助能力，尽管在激烈的战斗中切换这些技能可能比较困难。

Overview: The Kicksassin is a melee fighter with a lot of different attacks to use, many of which have elemental components. Her finishing moves have practical effects, and the Shadow Discipline skills give her tons of utility on the battlefield, although it can be difficult to switch to those skills in the heat of battle.

专精武术技能树的刺客（通常被称为“踢击刺客”）擅长近身战斗，尽管她的战斗方式与圣骑士或野蛮人略有不同。刺客最大的优势之一在于其元素属性的运用。最高等级的武术技能“凤凰打击”可以造成大量的火焰、冰霜或闪电伤害。鉴于游戏中没有敌人能够同时免疫超过两种元素伤害，这意味着踢击刺客总能找到一种可以造成额外伤害的攻击方式。

The Assassin who specializes in the martial arts skill tree (typically called a “Kicksassin”) can fight in close quarters adeptly, although she uses slightly different means to do so than the Paladin or Barbarian. One of the greatest advantages of the Assassin lies in her elemental availability. The top-level Martial Arts skill, Phoenix Strike, can deal significant amounts of fire, cold, or lightning damage. Given that no enemy in the game can be immune to more than two elements at a time, this means that the Kicksassin will always have an attack that can deal some extra damage.

该攻击还能获得一些微弱的协同加成，但玩家需要将技能点分配到不同的技能上，才能使每个元素都获得协同加成。该攻击的关键缺点在于，与陷阱技能树中的技能不同，“凤凰打击”是攻击技能而非法术。因此，玩家必须成功发动一次物理攻击才能使“凤凰打击”命中目标，这可能需要多次近战尝试。话虽如此，我们在对弓箭亚马逊的分析中已经看到，刺客除了获得伤害和暴击加成外，还能从爪击精通中获得可观的攻击力加成。此外，“凤凰打击”提供的攻击等级加成也非常可观，两者结合起来，足以打出在游戏任何阶段都有效的伤害。再加上终结技的实用效果，例如范围伤害、传送和大量生命偷取，刺客的战斗力完全可以与其他近战职业相媲美。

The attack also benefits from some minor synergy bonuses, although the player has to divide skill points between various skills to give each element a synergy boost. The crucial drawback of the attack is that, unlike the skills in the Traps tree, Phoenix Strike is an attack rather than a spell. Thus, in order for Phoenix Strike to hit, the player has to land a physical attack successfully, which may require several attempts at close range. That said, we’ve already seen in the Bowazon analysis that Assassins get great attack bonuses from Claw Mastery, in addition to gaining damage and critical strike. Moreover, the attack rating bonuses from Phoenix Strike are also great, and combine together to put out damage that is viable for any part of the game. Add to this the practical effects of finishing moves like area damage, teleportation, and major lifesteal and the Assassin can fight just as well as any other melee class.

刺客的弱点在于生存能力。虽然她几乎可以装备任何护甲（大多数职业都可以），但她的被动防御能力不足以让她像近战野蛮人或持盾圣骑士那样轻松格挡大部分攻击。刺客的技能有所帮助，但她必须依赖一些特殊的双功能技能。例如，“暗影斗篷”、“速度爆发”和“隐身术”等技能需要频繁冷却，而圣骑士和野蛮人的技能要么是固有的，要么是需要切换的。“速度爆发”和“隐身术”不能同时激活，因此玩家必须根据具体情况选择使用哪一个。同样，也有一些法术可以帮助控制群体敌人，例如“心灵之锤”和“精神冲击”。前者可以击退敌人，有效地阻止敌群靠近。后者可以控制一群普通敌人，让他们攻击自己的盟友。这两种技能对于有效控制人群都至关重要，但与防御技能一样，快速切换它们可能比较困难。《暗黑破坏神》的界面设计并不支持技能的多样化使用（我们将在下一节讨论这一点），因此，例如，刺客玩家在控制人群方面需要比圣骑士玩家付出更多努力。

The Kicksassin’s drawback is in its survivability. Although she can equip virtually any armor (as most classes can), her defensive passive abilities aren’t enough to allow the Assassin to simply deflect most blows, as a melee Barbarian or shield-using Paladin might do for much of the game. The Assassin’s skills help, but she has to rely on some unusual, two-function abilities to do so. Skills like Cloak of Shadows, Burst of Speed, and Fade need to be renewed fairly often, whereas Paladin and Barbarian skills are either inherent or toggled. Burst of Speed and Fade cannot be active at the same time, and so the player has to manage which one is necessary in any individual situation. Similarly, there are spells which help to control crowds, like Psychic Hammer and Mind Blast. The former applies knockback and is useful for keeping approaching crowds away. The latter mind-controls a group of common enemies and makes them fight their allies. Both of these are necessary for good crowd control, but as with the defensive abilities, it can be difficult to switch between them quickly. The Diablo UI isn’t made for diverse ability usage (this is a topic we’ll discuss in the next section) and so the Assassin player has to do more work managing crowds than a Paladin does, for example.

野蛮人

Barbarian

技能加点：野蛮人的技能树不像其他职业那样固定，除了主修战斗技能外，其他技能并非一成不变。除了主修战斗技能外，野蛮人还可以选择各种移动、群体控制和被动技能。

Builds: Not as distinct; Barbarian skill trees don’t lock him into skills the way other classes do, except for his chosen Combat Skill. Other than the main Combat Skill, Barbarians can choose from a variety of movement, crowd control, and passive abilities.

职业优势：非常耐打，不需要把很多技能升到满级就能发挥很大作用。

Class strength: Very durable, doesn’t need to max out many skills to get good use from them

职业弱点：与其他职业相比，需要使用更多技能，需要良好的行动机制，可能会遇到无法承受物理攻击的敌人，从而陷入僵局。

Class weakness: Tends to require use of more skills than other classes do, requires good action mechanics, can run into stalemate situations with enemies who just won’t take damage from his physical attacks.

元素属性：较差。他主要造成物理伤害。他有两种攻击可以造成可观的魔法伤害；其中一种攻击会降低防御能力，而另一种则需要投入大量跨系技能点数进行协同加成。

Elemental availability: Poor. He mostly deals physical damage. There are two attacks that deal significant magic damage; one has defensive drawbacks while the other requires major cross-tree synergy investment.

协同作用：野蛮人的协同作用通常跨越技能树，线性协同作用并不常见。

Synergies: The Barbarian’s synergies often connect across skill trees, and linear synergies aren’t abundant.

概述：无论选择哪种攻击技能，成功的野蛮人都需要比其他职业更全面地掌握多种技能。野蛮人可以依靠单一技能进行杀戮，但他们也需要移动、群体控制和增益技能。

Overview: Regardless of which attack skill he wants to use, successful Barbarians need to diversify their skill set a little more than other classes. Barbarians can rely on one skill for killing, but they need movement, crowd control and buffing skills as well

如果说《暗黑破坏神II》中近战职业的主要战术困境在于选择攻击力强还是生存能力强的装备，那么野蛮人则通过允许玩家使用技能来弥补装备的不足，从而解决了这一难题。乍一看，这似乎是一种糟糕的游戏设计。如果玩家可以轻易绕过战术选择，那么设计战术选择的意义何在？然而，这个问题的答案远比传统游戏设计原则所暗示的要复杂得多，原因有三。

If the primary tactical dilemma of melee fighters in Diablo II is the choice between gear that emphasizes attack or survivability, the Barbarian solves that dilemma by allowing the player to complement his choice of gear with abilities that eliminate the drawback. At first glance, this looks like a bit of bad game design. What’s the point of creating a tactical decision if the player can just go around it? There are three reasons why the answer to this question is more complicated than traditional game design maxims might lead you to think.

1.在某种程度上，这个问题并不适用于《暗黑破坏神II》 。 《暗黑破坏神II》中有很多装备组合可以让任何职业都变成近乎无敌的杀戮机器。因此，野蛮人并没有违反《暗黑破坏神II》的任何主要设计原则。

1.To a certain degree, this question is inappropriate for Diablo II. There are plenty of gear combinations in Diablo II that can turn any character class into a nearly-invincible killing machine. As such, the Barbarian does not violate any of Diablo II’s major design principles.

2.从另一个角度来看，这个问题仍然很有意义，因为所有这些威力惊人的装备都非常稀有，只能在游戏后期获得。野蛮人在30级时就已经拥有一些非常强大的被动加成。虽然野蛮人不会破坏游戏平衡，但他确实会给游戏设计师的开发进度带来一些压力。

2.In another sense, the question is still pertinent, because all of that ludicrously powerful gear is rare and only found at the end of the game. The Barbarian already has some really powerful passive bonuses at level 30. Although the Barbarian doesn’t break the game, he can make a dent in the designer’s time table.

3.尽管野蛮人拥有诸多强大的能力，但他却始终无法在任何方面做到顶尖。他拥有最高的防御力，但这并不意味着他最擅长躲避伤害。他拥有极高的命中率和攻击力加成，能够造成巨额伤害，但这并不意味着他能像女巫或圣骑士那样迅速地消灭敌人。因此，他看似没有明显的弱点，实则缺乏强大的优势。

3.For all his great abilities, the Barbarian never becomes the best at anything. He has the highest possible defense, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best at avoiding damage. He has great bonuses to hit and attack power and can deal tons of damage, but that doesn’t necessarily allow him to chew through enemies as fast as the Sorceress or Hammerdin can. So really, his lack of obvious flaws is checked by a lack of powerful strengths.

单就游戏本身而言，野蛮人违反了许多传统角色扮演游戏的战术平衡。但在《暗黑破坏神II》的背景下，野蛮人的存在就显得更加合理了。

In a vacuum, the Barbarian violates many of the traditional RPG tactical balances. In the context of Diablo II, the Barbarian makes more sense.

野蛮人的核心设计理念在于他必须运用多种主动技能才能生存并击杀敌人。当然，所有职业都会投入资源学习多种技能，但许多施法者通常只依赖一个技能，其余技能点则用于技能协同。而野蛮人则更倾向于频繁使用多个技能。这与刺客有些类似，刺客需要刷新防御增益效果并使用暗影专精技能控制群体，但野蛮人的主要考量在于进攻。几乎所有野蛮人都会使用战斗指令来使自身生命值翻倍，就像刺客使用隐身技能一样。野蛮人的许多群体控制技能同时也是有效的击杀技能，其伤害远高于刺客的同类技能。野蛮人可以使用重击逐个击退敌人，也可以使用范围攻击技能嚎叫来驱散敌人。野蛮人甚至可以使用持续一段时间的死亡图腾技能封锁地图上的部分区域。另一方面，大多数野蛮人可以他只有近距离才能造成显著伤害，因此需要接近目标——即使有障碍物阻挡。为此，他有多种接近敌人的方法。他可以使用“跳跃”或“跳跃攻击”直接跳到敌人身上。他还可以使用“嘲讽”技能吸引敌人，尤其是在配合“嚎叫”技能时。

The central tenet of Barbarian design is that he has to use multiple active skills to survive and kill his enemies. All classes invest in multiple skills, of course, but many casters rely on one skill most of the time, while investing the rest in synergies. The Barbarian tends to use several skills more often. This is somewhat like the Assassin, who has to refresh her defensive buffs and control crowds with her Shadow Disciplines skills, but in this case it’s primarily an offensive concern. Nearly all Barbarians will use Battle Orders to double their health in the same way that Assassins use Fade. Many of the Barbarian’s crowd control skills are also useful killing skills, with way more damage built into them than the Assassin’s similar abilities. Barbarians can knock enemies away with Bash on a one-by-one basis, or they can scatter enemies with the AoE (area of effect) Howl ability. Barbarians can even block off parts of the map by using the Grim Totem skill, which lasts for a set amount of time. On the other hand, most Barbarians can only deal significant damage up close, and so he needs to close in on his chosen target—even when something else is in the way. Thus, he has several options for getting closer to enemies. He can use Leap or Leap Attack to jump right on an enemy. He can use the Taunt ability to draw enemies to himself, especially in conjunction with Howl.

他还可以利用被动技能“耐力提升”和“速度提升”，比其他敌人更快地冲向目标。我们将在动作机制部分更详细地介绍这一点，但显而易见的是，野蛮人拥有多种战场移动方式——尤其是在向敌人靠近时。

He can also use the passive skills Increased Stamina and Increased Speed to simply run to his targets faster than other enemies can intercept him. We’re going to cover this in a lot more depth in the section on action mechanics, but what should be clear is that the Barbarian has a variety of ways to get around the battlefield—especially when moving towards an enemy.

野蛮人也有多种不同的杀戮方式。撇开各种流派的细节不谈，设计者为野蛮人玩家设置了两个主要选择。第一个选择是玩家是否愿意牺牲防御力来提升伤害输出。第二个选择是玩家想要使用速度快的武器还是威力大的武器。这些选择并非非此即彼；玩家可以牺牲部分或全部防御力，也可以选择速度和威力各异的武器。

The Barbarian also has several different ways to do his killing. Regardless of the minutiae of builds, there are two primary choices that the designers set up for Barbarian players. The first decision is whether players want to sacrifice defense to deal damage or not. The second choice is whether players want to use fast weapons or powerful ones. The choices are not binary; players can sacrifice some defense or all of it, and can choose weapons on a spectrum of speeds and powers.

接下来还有很多决策需要做出。野蛮人除了物理伤害之外的唯一选择——魔法伤害，在伤害谱的两端都存在。配合战斗指令，专注技能可以获得等同于其自身属性的魔法伤害加成。狂暴技能在造成物理伤害的同时，还能显著提升防御力。而狂暴则截然相反，它能造成更高的魔法伤害，但激活期间会将野蛮人的防御力降至零。此外，狂暴还会移除所有效果，例如生命偷取（顾名思义，就是吸取生命值），从而剥夺了野蛮人最有效的辅助防御手段。另外两个在高等级下可用的近战技能——狂暴和旋风斩——则介于两者之间。狂暴不会直接降低防御力，但需要野蛮人放下盾牌。旋风斩也不会影响防御力，但野蛮人在旋风斩期间无法使用药剂，也无法改变攻击方向。

There are a lot of subsequent decisions to make here. Magic damage, the Barbarian’s one alternative to physical damage, exists on both ends of the spectrum. With a synergy from Battle Orders, Concentrate can gain magic damage equal to its physical damage while still providing significant bonuses to defense. Berserk, on the other end of the spectrum, provides a lot more magical damage, but it sets the Barbarian’s defense rating to zero while active. Moreover, Berserk removes all effects like lifesteal (which does exactly what it sounds like) and so removes the best auxiliary defense mechanism a Barbarian might have. Frenzy and Whirlwind, the other two melee attacks that are viable at high level, are in the middle. Frenzy does not directly impair defense, but it does require the Barbarian to set down his shield. Whirlwind also does not affect defense, but the Barbarian cannot use potions while in the middle of it, nor redirect his path.

衡量野蛮人攻击力的另一个维度是其对攻击速度的需求，而攻击速度可以通过装备提升。理论研究者（那些运用高等数学打造完美角色的超硬核玩家）会对本文的这一部分提出异议。大多数严肃的《暗黑破坏神II》玩家坚持在他们的近战角色构建中追求最高攻击速度，无论获取难度有多大。我同意，如果你想打造一台完美的杀戮机器，你应该始终保持尽可能高的攻击速度。为了实现这一点，大多数严肃玩家会进行成千上万次的重复练习，耗时数百小时。游戏的设计初衷并非强迫所有玩家都这样做。《暗黑破坏神II》的设计者们在攻击速度的实现中内置了收益递减曲线。[ 22 ]

The other dimension along which Barbarian attacks can be measured is their need for attack speed, as increased by items. This is one part of this document that theorycrafters (ultra-hardcore players who use advanced mathematics to create perfect characters) will object to. Most serious Diablo II players insist on maximum attack speed in their melee builds, no matter how hard it is to obtain it. I agree that, if you were trying to build the perfect killing machine, you should have the maximum possible attack speed all the time. To accomplish this, most serious players will also perform thousands of repetitious runs, lasting literally hundreds of hours. The game was not designed to force all players into this behavior. Attack speed, as implemented by the Diablo II designers, has a diminishing returns curve built in.[22]

这些收益递减机制旨在迫使普通玩家（例如，他们不愿意花费数百小时刷下层库拉斯特）围绕自身不足之处来构建装备。由于攻击速度的收益递减，攻击速度已经相当高的玩家将无法获得足够的收益。增加更多物品或技能的伤害也会影响攻击速度。反之亦然。如果一个野蛮人伤害很高但攻击速度很低，那么玩家通过技能提升攻击速度会比提升武器伤害更容易。旋风斩技能稍微打破了这种规律，因为它从攻击速度中获得的收益比其他技能更高。旋风斩有其独特的命中判定表，对攻击速度略微有利，但它也存在收益递减的问题。最后一点需要考虑的是，旋风斩消耗的法力值与攻击次数无关，因此更高的攻击速度可以让玩家在短距离内以更少的法力值进行更多次攻击——这也解释了它在图表中的位置。

These diminishing returns are in place to force the average player (who is not willing to do hundreds of hours of Lower Kurast runs, for example) to build around what he or she lacks. Because of the diminishing returns on attack speed, players who already have fairly high attack speed aren’t going to get as much return on more items or skills which add to it. The reverse is also true. If a Barbarian has high damage, but little attack speed, his player will have an easier time acquiring a little bit of attack speed through his skills than acquiring marginally higher damage on his weapon. The Whirlwind skill breaks this dynamic a little bit, in that its gains from attack speed are greater than those of other skills. Whirlwind has its own hit-check table that is a little more favorable to attack speed, although it, too, suffers from diminishing returns. The last consideration for Whirlwind is that it costs the same amount of mana no matter how many hits it outputs, so higher attack speed gives the player more hits per mana, even at short distances—explaining its position on the diagram.

为了概括野蛮人的精髓，我想重点介绍他最重要的几项被动技能：武器专精。诸如剑术专精和长柄武器专精之类的技能表明，野蛮人的构建过程比其他职业更加灵活多变。而且，野蛮人并非只有一种武器专精；每种武器类型都有其专属的专精技能。虽然角色构建的核心在于战术选择，但武器专精技能的划分似乎过于严苛。如果玩家选择了一种武器类型，难道就必须放弃在游戏过程中获得的所有其他武器类型吗？这种想法完全颠倒了野蛮人的构建思路。武器专精的意义不在于限制武器类型，而在于根据玩家遇到的情况进行调整。玩家可以通过保留一些技能点，等待获得强力武器，然后再投资相应的专精技能。这才是野蛮人的本质。野蛮人可以根据自身装备，选择最合适的被动技能、移动技能和攻击技能。对于大多数其他职业，玩家会先选择一套build，然后再寻找最适合的装备。高手玩家对野蛮人也会这样做，但对大多数玩家来说，野蛮人允许玩家进行更灵活、更能随机应变的战斗。

To summarize the essence of the Barbarian, I want to point to a set of his most important passive skills: Masteries. Skills like Sword Mastery and Polearm Mastery show how building a Barbarian is a much more reactive process than building other classes. There isn’t just one such mastery skill; each weapon type has its own skill. Although character construction is all about tactical choices, the split in weapon mastery skills seems unnecessarily punitive. If the player commits to one type of weapon, do they have to throw away all the other weapon types they get on their journey through the game? This way of thinking gets the Barbarian build exactly backwards. The point of weapon masteries is not to proscribe weapon types, but to adapt to what the player encounters. By saving some skill points, the player can wait for a great weapon to drop and then invest in the appropriate mastery. This is what the Barbarian is like, generally. The Barbarian can choose what passives skills, movement skills, and attacking skills best complement the gear he actually has. For most other classes, players choose a build and then seek out the best items for it. Master-level players do the same for Barbarian, but for most players, the Barbarian allows for a little more flexibility and reactive play.

死灵法师

Necromancer

构建：2：骨/毒和召唤师

Builds: 2: Bone/Poison and Summoner

骨/毒死灵法师

Bone/Poison Necro

构建力量：远程角色，拥有强大的群体控制能力和优秀的物品技能加成。

Build Strength: Ranged character with terrific crowd control abilities and great itemized skill bonuses.

构建弱点：直接伤害型角色需要比其他施法型角色付出更多努力才能造成伤害。

Build Weakness: Direct damage build has to work a little harder for damage than his fellow casters.

元素可用性：良好，能够稳定造成毒素和非元素魔法伤害。熟练的玩家可以造成火焰伤害，但这需要特定的战场条件。无论如何，都能降低敌人的抗性。

Elemental Availability: Good, can reliably inflict poison and non-elemental magic. Skilled players can inflict fire damage, although it requires certain battlefield conditions. Can mitigate enemy resistances, in any case.

协同作用：没有像女巫、陷阱刺客或锤子圣骑士那样巨大的线性协同作用，但所有诅咒都与其他法术有协同作用，这是设计使然。

Synergies: No huge, linear synergies in the manner of the Sorceress, Trapsassin, or Hammerdin, but all curses are synergistic with other spells, by design.

概述：骨/毒死灵法师虽然施法技巧更为高超，但在经验丰富的玩家手中仍然是一个强大的职业。死灵法师并非直接造成大量伤害，而是使用诅咒。在用各种伤害手段攻击对手之前，先削弱他们。毒素与骨骼技能树中的一些小技能也能以极低的投入提供强大的群体控制效果。死灵法师独特的装备系统也能从其他方面增强他的力量。

Overview: A more technically advanced caster, the bone/poison Necromancer is nevertheless a powerful class when played by an experienced player. Instead of dealing tons of damage directly, the Necromancer uses curses to weaken his opponents before hitting them with sources of damage. Minor skills in the Poison & Bone tree also work as great crowd control effects with minimal investment. The Necromancer’s peculiar itemization also works to enhance his power in orthogonal ways.

关于死灵法师的法术，最重要的一点是它们缺乏女巫、圣骑士、陷阱刺客或飓风德鲁伊那样的顶级伤害。考虑到降低抗性的诅咒，死灵法师的毒素伤害流派就显得更加合理了。（不知为何，降低抗性并不影响纯魔法抗性，不过骨系法术仍然可以作为辅助伤害。）死灵法师相比其他施法者还有其他优势，主要体现在实用技能上。无论选择哪个职业，普通玩家都会围绕三个主要技能构建角色，每个技能投入20点，再加上解锁这些技能所需的前置技能，投入大约5-10点。大多数玩家在高等级游戏中都不会使用这些前置技能，因为它们太弱了。而死灵法师则完全不存在这个问题。像“衰老诅咒”这样的法术在低等级时仍然相当实用，“骨墙”可以轻松频繁施放，堵塞地图，阻止敌人快速推进。毒素死灵法师可能仍然会专注于三种法术（例如“毒素新星”、“骨灵”和“降低抗性”），但他也有其他选择。

The most important thing to know about the Necromancer’s spells is that they simply lack the top-end damage of the Sorceress, Hammerdin, Trapsassin, or Hurricane Druid. Factor in the Lower Resist curse, and suddenly the build makes a lot more sense for poison damage builds. (Lower Resist does not affect pure magic resistance for some reason, although the bone spells are still useful as supplemental damage.) The Necromancer also has other advantages over his fellow casters, mostly in the form of utility skills. Regardless of character class, the average player is going to build their character around three primary skills, investing 20 points into each, plus about 5–10 points into all the prerequisites that unlock those skills. Most players aren’t going to use those prerequisites in high-level play, because they’re too weak. The Necromancer is one class where that weakness is not a problem. Curses like Decrepify are still reasonably useful at low levels, and Bone Wall can easily be spammed to clutter the map and prevent enemies from advancing too quickly. The poison Necromancer will still probably focus on three spells (like Poison Nova, Bone Spirit, and Lower Resist), but he’s got other options as well.

死灵法师的装备系统也有些特殊。死灵法师的职业专属装备与其他职业一样，都带有职业专属的技能加成词缀。但它的特殊之处在于，它占用盾牌栏位，这意味着死灵法师还可以装备一根拥有更多技能加成的魔杖。在游戏初期，这使得休闲玩家的死灵法师能够轻松地提升技能等级，使其超越自身等级。然而，到了游戏后期，所有施法者都能获得的强力独特装备会抵消这一优势。死灵法师装备系统的另一个特点是，其装备上快速施法速度（FCR）词缀的出现频率异常高。FCR词缀对所有施法者都同样有用，但死灵法师更容易在相对普通的装备上积累大量的FCR词缀。因此，像“骨灵”这样伤害相对较低的法术，可以通过大幅提升施法速度来弥补。

Necromancer itemization is a little unusual as well. The Necromancer’s class-specific item is normal in that it has class-specific +skill affixes. It’s unusual in that it occupies the shield slot, meaning that the Necromancer can also equip a wand which has even more +skill bonuses. In the earlier parts of the game, this makes it easy for casual Necromancers to build up skills above their character’s level. At the highest levels, the powerful unique items available to all casters neutralize this advantage. Another quirk of Necromancer itemization is the unusual prevalence of faster cast rate (FCR) affixes on Necromancer items. The FCR affix is equally useful for all casters, but Necromancers have a much easier time accumulating a significant amount on relatively common gear. Thus, the relatively low damage of a spell like Bone Spirit can be augmented by a much faster cast rate.

召唤师

Summoner

增强力量：将与敌人战斗（和承受伤害）的责任转移到死灵法师的仆从身上，使死灵法师能够从后方施放诅咒和法术。

Build Strength: Offloads the responsibility for fighting (and tanking) enemies on to the Necromancer’s minions, allowing the Necromancer to throw curses and spells from the back.

构筑弱点：取决于敌方尸体的数量。比毒素/骨骼构筑消耗更多技能点，降低了死灵法师的实用性。召唤物有时难以对抗首领级怪物。

Build Weakness: Depends on the availability of enemy corpses. Consumes more skill points than the poison/bone build, reducing the Necromancer’s utility. Summons sometimes have trouble standing up to boss monsters.

元素可用性：较差。召唤师主要依赖召唤物的物理伤害，在某些情况下，魔像也能造成中等程度的火焰伤害。不过，死灵法师可以通过诅咒来弥补这一不足。

Elemental Availability: Poor. The Summoner relies on his minions’ physical damage, and in some cases, moderate fire damage from a golem. The Necromancer can mitigate this with curses, however.

协同效应：召唤系技能树拥有众多被动加成，可以提升召唤怪物的生命值、攻击力，甚至抗性，但这些加成比其他职业和流派的类似加成更为复杂。诅咒技能可以与任何流派产生协同效应。

Synergies: The Summoning tree has numerous passive bonuses which grant increased health, power, and even resistance to summoned monsters, but these bonuses are more complicated than similar bonuses in other classes and builds. Curses operate synergistically with any build.

概述：召唤师流派需要大量的操控，但它能通过在死灵法师和敌人之间部署大量仆从，大大降低死灵法师自身的危险性。在高等级时，这些仆从可以轻松应对成群的敌人，但面对首领时，除非玩家非常谨慎地管理这些仆从，否则它们会比较棘手。最大的问题在于，玩家的召唤物数量并非受限于法力值，而是受限于敌人尸体的数量。

Overview: The Summoner build requires lots of management, but greatly reduces the danger to the Necromancer by putting an army of minions between him and the enemy. At higher levels, these minions can easily handle enemy swarms, but they have trouble with bosses unless the player manages the Necromancer minions very carefully. The biggest problem is that the player is not limited by mana, but rather by the supply of enemy corpses.

召唤师死灵法师能够召唤骷髅大军或复活敌人，以及一个魔像。召唤师最重要的设计特点是，骷髅和魔像的强度仅取决于死灵法师的技能等级，而复活技能召唤的敌人强度则取决于被复活敌人的自身强度。这两组技能共享一些被动效果（骷髅精通和召唤抗性），但除此之外，它们给玩家带来了一些问题。死灵法师应该如何分配技能点？女巫早期对低级技能的投资通常与她的高级技能相辅相成。对亡灵法师来说，投资于“召唤骷髅”技能并不能以同样的方式提升后期能力，但召唤师却需要这些技能点来度过游戏初期。1.13版本允许玩家在游戏后期重新分配所有天赋点，但在之前的十多年里，这是不可能实现的。但这并没有让死灵法师变得无法游玩；他一直以来都是一个既有趣又强大的角色。然而，这种技能缺乏前期到后期协同作用的情况在《暗黑破坏神II》的角色中并不常见，令人费解的是，在1.13版本之前的众多补丁中，设计者们竟然从未提及此事。

The Summoner Necromancer is able to raise an army of skeletons or resurrected enemies, as well as one golem. The most important design dynamic for the Summoner is that the strength of skeletons and golems is dependent only on the Necromancer’s skill levels, whereas the strength of enemies raised by the Revive skill depends also on the strength of the enemy raised. The two sets of skills share some passive abilities (Skeleton Mastery and Summon Resist), but otherwise present a problem for players. How should Necromancer skill points be invested? A Sorceress’s early investments into low-level skills are usually synergistic with her top-level skills. Investments into Raise Skeleton do not help the late-game Necromancer in the same way, but the Summoner needs those points in Raise Skeleton in order to survive the early game. Patch 1.13 allows players to reallocate all their talent points later in the game, but for more than a decade, this wasn’t possible. This didn’t make the Necromancer unplayable; he is and has been a fun and powerful character. This lack of early-skill-to-late-skill synergy is unusual among Diablo II characters, however, and it’s curious that the designers never addressed it in any of the numerous patches that came before 1.13.

召唤师的机制也独具特色，尽管骷髅、魔像和复活怪物的使用方式截然不同。召唤师流派的优势在于玩家可以悠闲地施放几个诅咒，让召唤物完成大部分工作。难点在于如何保证所有召唤物的存活，尤其是在面对首领时。骷髅、魔像和复活的怪物会不断死亡，死灵法师必须通过复活新的尸体来补充。大多数情况下，这不成问题，因为《暗黑破坏神II》中玩家会遇到成千上万的怪物。然而，首领战却是个难题。强大的首领可以轻松消灭玩家的所有召唤物，而且不会掉落任何新的尸体供玩家复活。这迫使玩家在地图上四处奔波，试图重新召唤一支军队，同时还要躲避强大的首领追击。这种情况在章节首领战中更加严重，因为除了迪亚波罗之外，其他首领都聚集在一个相对较小的区域内，可供复活的敌人数量有限。经验丰富的玩家最终会发现，某些复活的怪物比其他怪物更适合用来对付首领，但其他职业每次想要刷章节首领时，都不需要去追踪特定的一群敌人。

Summoner mechanics are also unique, although there is much of difference between the use of skeletons, golems, and revived monsters. The easy part of the Summoner build is that the player can simply sit back and cast a few curses while his minions do most of the work. The hard part is keeping all those minions alive, especially against bosses. Skeletons, golems, and revived monsters are always dying, and the Necromancer has to replace them by reanimating another corpse. Most of the time, this is not a problem, since Diablo II sends the player through thousands of monsters. Bosses, however, present a problem. Unique enemies, with their enhanced power, can easily kill all of the player’s minions without yielding any new corpses to raise. This sends the player running around the map, trying to raise a new army while a unique monster chases them. The effect is even worse with the act bosses, who (with the exception of Diablo) all wait in a relatively small location with few enemies to raise. Expert players eventually figure out that certain revived monsters are better for bosses than others, but no other class has to go and track down a certain pack of enemies every time they want to farm the act bosses.

召唤师或“召唤大师”（该职业的更常见称呼）在面对首领时遇到的难题，在许多不同的游戏中都反复出现。无论是初代《激战》还是《地狱之门：伦敦》（布雷维克的另一款游戏），都让召唤大师在挑战首领时面临类似的困境。在这些游戏中，召唤物足以应付普通的小怪，但往往不足以对首领造成伤害或承受其伤害。虽然大卫·布雷维克并未明确提及此事，但他曾向我表示，他认为角色扮演游戏设计中存在一些无法解决的问题——例如完美平衡范围法术伤害。[ 23 ]如果许多游戏公司即使拥有丰富的经验也无法平衡召唤大师，那么我们也不应该因为《暗黑破坏神II》中一个相对较小的缺陷而责怪其设计师。毕竟，即使玩家在游玩时会面临不平衡的挑战，召唤师流派仍然可行。

The problem of facing bosses as a Summoner or “minion master” (as the class is more generally called) is one that is repeated in many different games. Both the original Guild Wars and Hellgate: London (another Brevik game) put their minion masters through similar difficulties when taking on bosses. Minions in those games are more than adequate for common trash mobs, but are often inadequate for dealing or surviving damage from bosses. Although he didn’t address this topic specifically, David Brevik commented to me that he thought there were certain unsolvable problems in RPG design—like perfectly balancing AoE spell damage.[23] If many different game companies cannot balance the minion master even with the advantage of lots of hindsight, then we shouldn’t fault the designers of Diablo II for a relatively small imperfection. After all, the Summoner build is still viable, even if players face an uneven challenge when playing it.

圣骑士

Paladin

职业构筑：3种：狂热圣骑士、重击圣骑士、锤击圣骑士（前两种均为近战职业）

Builds: 3: Fanatidin, Smiter, Hammerdin (the former two are both melee)

狂热者/圣战者

Fanatidin/Smiter

构建优势：防御力和伤害输出都很高，可以通过技能而不是物品获得攻击速度，可以佩戴盾牌并以很高的效率格挡。

Build Strengths: High defense and damage output, can get attack speed from a skill instead of an item, can wear a shield and block at a high rate.

构建弱点：其最高伤害技能的元素可用性较为有限。

Build Weaknesses: Somewhat limited elemental availability in his highest-damage skills.

元素可用性：理论上很高，因为他拥有丰富的物理和魔法伤害，并且可以通过复仇技能将其他几种元素附加到物理攻击上。然而，圣骑士很少选择复仇技能，因为它与其他更强的攻击方式相互冲突。因此，实际的元素可用性远低于表面看起来的水平。

Elemental availability: Theoretically high, as he has abundant physical and magical damage, and can add several other elements to his physical attack via Vengeance. That said, Paladins rarely choose this last option as it is mutually exclusive with better attacks. So the effective elemental availability is much lower than it seems.

协同作用：不显著，中等强度的协同作用。

Synergies: Unremarkable, medium-strength synergies.

概述：圣战者和狂热者之间的一个关键区别在于：前者更擅长对付单个目标，后者则更擅长对付多个目标。然而，他们都是近战职业，并且主要造成物理伤害。

Overview: The Smiter and Fanatidin are different in one key dynamic: the former is better against single targets and the latter against multiple. They are both melee fighters, however, and primarily deal physical damage.

圣骑士职业天生耐打，这得益于生命值带来的丰厚加成以及游戏中最高的格挡率。事实上，即使是低等级的圣盾术也能将原本平庸的盾牌的格挡率提升到极致。这两个近战职业正是凭借这一点而成为可行的选择。许多新手玩家偏爱狂热圣骑士，因为狂热术拥有众多且强大的加成。狂热术是游戏中为数不多的几个能在不降低防御（例如狂暴术会降低防御）或不锁定其他技能（例如变形技能）的情况下显著提升攻击速度的技能之一。它对伤害和攻击等级的加成也十分出色，即使是装备等级较低的简单流派也能成为高效的杀戮机器。经验丰富的玩家通常更喜欢重击者流派，因为它对单体目标拥有极高的爆发伤害。这些玩家往往会直接冲向（或传送至）首领。然而，这两个流派都依赖于类似的配置和装备，操作也非常简单。总的来说，玩家只需点击……直到死亡，它都是众矢之的。培养一名圣骑士的全部精力都集中在准备和装备上。

The Paladin class is naturally durable, thanks to good bonuses from vitality and the highest natural block rate in the game. Indeed, even a low-level use of Holy Shield can max out the block rate of an otherwise mediocre shield. These two melee classes are viable for just that reason. Many newer players prefer the Fanatidin because of Fanaticism’s numerous, large bonuses. Indeed, Fanaticism is one of the few skills in the game that gives significant attack speed bonuses without compromising defense (as Frenzy incidentally does), or locking out other skills (as shapeshifting skills do). Its bonuses to damage and attack rating also scale well and can make even simple builds with low-level gear into effective killing machines. More experienced players often prefer the Smiter build for its high top-end damage against single targets. These players tend to run (or teleport) right for bosses. Both builds rely on a similar setup and similar gear, however, and are mechanically very easy. By and large, the player clicks on a target until it dies. All of the effort in building one of these Paladins is in preparation and gear.

哈默丁

Hammerdin

构建优势：远程伤害巨大，仍然可以穿戴优秀的盔甲并拥有很高的格挡率。

Build Strengths: Huge ranged damage, can still wear great armor and have a high block rate.

构建弱点：元素可用性非常有限。

Build Weaknesses: Very limited elemental availability.

元素可用性：非常差，仅造成魔法伤害。

Elemental Availability: Very poor, only does magic damage.

协同效应：受益于游戏中臭名昭著的技能协同效应之一

Synergies: Benefits from one of the most infamous skill synergies in the game

概述：圣骑士也是一个能力出众的施法者职业，能够运用魔法战斗技能远程击败对手。根据其物理技能的构成，人们可能会认为圣骑士的魔法选择会分为单体和群体法术，但事实并非如此。

Overview: The Paladin is also a competent caster class and can use magical combat skills to destroy his opponents at range. One would expect, based on the setup of his physical skills, that the Paladin’s magical options would be divided between single-target and multi-target spells, but it isn’t so.

“祝福之锤”和“天界之拳”这两个法术都旨在攻击多个目标，而且它们在这方面都表现出色。问题在于，“祝福之锤”拥有游戏中为数不多的乘法协同效果之一。正如我们在亚马逊部分所看到的，圣骑士的命中率和伤害加成堪比任何职业的最佳被动技能。“祝福瞄准”、“力量”和“狂热”对近战圣骑士及其近战队友来说都是极大的助力。然而，它们都无法与“专注”对“祝福之锤”的提升相提并论。“祝福之锤”的常规协同效果来自“牺牲”/“祝福瞄准”。每提升一级“牺牲”或“祝福瞄准”，它就能获得12%的额外伤害；提升20级后，“祝福之锤”的威力将提升2.4倍。通常情况下，“专注”的协同效果只会简单地叠加在这个倍率之上。通常情况下，专注提供的 240% 加成会与牺牲提供的 240% 加成叠加，从而提供 480% 的加成。但实际上，专注的效果是这样的：

Both the Blessed Hammer and Fist of the Heavens spells are meant to hit multiple targets, and they both do a good job of it. The problem is that Blessed Hammer enjoys one of the only multiplicative synergies in the game. As we saw in the amazon section, the Paladin’s bonuses to hit rating and damage are comparable to any class’s best passive skills. Blessed Aim, Might, and Fanaticism, are a great help to a melee Paladin and his melee friends. None of them can match what concentration does for Blessed Hammer, though. Blessed Hammer’s normal synergy is from Sacrifice/Blessed Aim. It gains 12% more damage per level of either; 20 levels in either will multiply the power of Blessed Hammer by 2.4. Normally, the synergy from Concentration would simply add to the multiplier. A 240% bonus from Concentration would normally be added to the 240% bonus from Sacrifice to provide a 480% bonus. Instead, Concentration does this:

（祝福之锤* 2.4）* 2.4 [ = 5.76]

(Blessed hammer * 2.4) * 2.4 [=5.76]

在后期等级，当玩家装备上拥有大量技能词缀时，这个等式带来的收益会以惊人的方式爆发。锤子圣骑士几乎所有的强大之处都源于这个等式及其与《暗黑破坏神II》常规机制的差异。（这也解释了为什么锤子圣骑士在懂数学的玩家中如此受欢迎。）

In later levels when the player has lots of +skill affixes on their gear, the returns on this equation erupt in tremendous fashion. Almost all of the power of the Hammerdin comes down to this one equation and its deviation from the normal mechanics of Diablo II. (It also explains why the Hammerdin is ludicrously popular to people who know about the math.)

德鲁伊

Druid

流派：3种：元素、变形、召唤（虽然最后一种流派并不常用）

Builds: 3: Elemental, Shapeshifter, Summoner (though this last build isn’t really used)

元素德鲁伊

Elemental Druid

角色优势：强大的远程施法者，一个天赋树中包含多种元素选项。

Build Strengths: Powerful ranged caster, wide variety of elemental options in one talent tree.

构建弱点：如果不充分利用协同效应，法术造成的伤害会低于其他施法者。

Build Weaknesses: Without significant use of synergies, spells do less damage than other casters.

元素可用性：高，可以使用造成冰霜、火焰和物理伤害的法术。

Elemental Availability: High, can use spells that deal cold, fire, and physical damage.

协同效应：虽然存在大量强大的线性协同效应，但这些效应只能将法术提升到与其他施法者相同的水平。本质上，德鲁伊需要花费比女巫更多的技能点才能造成相同的伤害。

Synergies: There are abundant and powerful linear synergies, but these only bring the spells up to the level of other casters. In essence, the Druid has to spend more skill points than the Sorceress to achieve the same damage.

概述：德鲁伊是《暗黑破坏神II》中传统平衡理念的绝佳体现。虽然元素德鲁伊可以轻松组合不同的元素技能，但他的技能伤害输出不如女巫或圣骑士等灵活性较低的职业。

Overview: The Druid is a great example of traditional balance ideas implemented in the context of Diablo II. Although the elemental Druid can mix and match different elemental skills fairly easily, his abilities don’t naturally put out as much damage as less flexible classes like the Sorceress or Hammerdin.

元素德鲁伊是少数几个在一个技能树中拥有三种或更多种元素伤害类型的职业之一，也是唯一一个完全以法术而非攻击方式提供这些伤害的职业。

The Elemental Druid is one of the few builds that has three or more types of elemental damage available in one skill tree, and the only one that has that damage available as entirely spells rather than as attacks.

因此，德鲁伊可以轻松地混合搭配各种元素，从而避免在最高难度下陷入元素抗性的陷阱。德鲁伊为此牺牲了部分伤害；他的大部分技能威力只有女巫技能树中同类技能的一半到四分之三。此外，德鲁伊不像女巫和圣骑士那样拥有强大的被动技能或光环。元素德鲁伊的优势在于一系列强大的线性协同效果。尤其是在火元素子技能树中，玩家可以将诸如末日浩劫之类的法术伤害提升到相当高的水平。与其他施法职业相比，德鲁伊的技能强度相当。然而，投入如此多的技能点到协同技能上，却会削弱其实用性。这种平衡机制正是传统角色扮演游戏（RPG）中常见的。但《暗黑破坏神II》并非传统RPG。这款游戏的精髓在于成为一台势不可挡的杀戮机器，因此这种平衡机制显得有些格格不入。但这并不会毁掉这款游戏；其他职业也可以选择兼顾多面性而非集中火力。德鲁伊只是面临着一个更加简单明了的选择。

Accordingly, the Druid can mix and match elements quite easily, thus avoiding the trap of elemental resistance on the hardest difficulty. The Druid sacrifices damage to do this; most of his skills are only half to three-quarters as strong as their analogues in the Sorceress skill trees. Moreover, the Druid has no powerful passive or aura as the Sorceress and Paladin do. What the Elemental Druid does have is a set of powerful linear synergies. Particularly in the fire elemental sub-tree, the player can raise the damage of spells like Armageddon to levels roughly comparable with other casting classes. By spending that many points in synergies, though, the Druid loses utility. This is exactly the kind of balance dynamic one would expect from an orthodox RPG. Diablo II isn’t that kind of RPG, however. The point of the game is to become an unstoppable killing machine, so this balance dynamic seems a little out of place. It doesn’t ruin the game; other classes can choose versatility over concentrated power as well. The Druid just has a much easier and more obvious choice.

元素德鲁伊真正受困于高额伤害所需额外技能点的地方在于其召唤技能的运用。德鲁伊并没有真正可行的召唤流派，但召唤出的仆从可以吸收伤害或提供辅助技能。如果德鲁伊试图将80点技能点投入元素法术和协同技能，那么他实际上就没有空间来充分利用这些辅助技能了。虽然在RPG游戏的历史上，一些优秀的作品中难免会出现一些无关紧要或无法使用的角色构建，但《暗黑破坏神II》中并没有真正意义上的无用技能树。召唤技能树并非毫无用处，但元素德鲁伊并非总能轻易地从中获益。

The place where the Elemental Druid really gets hurt by the extra skill points needed for top-end damage is in his ability to dabble in summoning skills. There is no truly viable Summoner build for Druids, but the summoned minions can be useful for soaking up damage or providing utility skills. A Druid trying to put 80 skill points into elemental spells and synergies doesn’t really have room to take advantage of that. Although extraneous or unusable character builds are a fixture of otherwise great titles in RPG history, Diablo II doesn’t really contain any totally useless skill trees. The summoning tree isn’t useless, but it’s not always easy for Elemental Druids to take advantage of it.

变形者（熊/狼）德鲁伊

Shapeshifter (Bear/Wolf) Druid

构筑优势：虽然这是一个近战构筑，但它也能利用多种强大的元素伤害来源。此外，该构筑还能较好地平衡其生存能力和输出能力。

Build Strengths: Although this is a melee build, it has access to several significant sources of elemental damage as well. This build also has relatively fine control over its balance of tankiness or deadliness.

构建弱点：虽然这种构建方式拥有多种被动技能和攻击手段，但变身成熊或狼形态的德鲁伊只能使用一种法术。

Build Weaknesses: Although this build has a variety of passive abilities and attacks, Druids who change into the bear or wolf form can only use one spell.

元素可用性：对于近战职业来说很高；他们可以造成大量的物理和火焰伤害，并且拥有尚可的毒素选项。

Elemental Availability: High for a melee class; they can output significant physical and fire damage and have a passable poison option.

协同效应：协同效应提供了元素选择，但需要大量投入才能产生可​​观的效果。

Synergies: Synergies provide elemental options, but require large investments for viable effects.

概述：变形德鲁伊构筑将德鲁伊转变为强大的近战战士，但代价是牺牲了部分辅助能力。狼德鲁伊和熊德鲁伊的战斗力与其他近战职业不相上下，但在主动技能方面略逊于其他职业。

Overview: The shapeshifter build transforms the Druid into a strong melee fighter at the cost of his utility. Wolf and bear Druids are every bit the fighting equals of other melee classes but are a little more confined in terms of action abilities than their peers.

变形德鲁伊可以变身为狼或熊，获得大幅攻击等级加成、中等伤害提升以及一系列专属技能。变形技能树的一个奇特之处在于，尽管许多技能实际上是需要持续刷新的主动技能，但它们的运作方式却如同被动技能。例如，熊人和狼人形态仅提供被动属性加成，且无法切换。狂犬病和野性狂怒也同样如同被动技能，但必须施放。火焰爪、冲击波和狂怒的运作方式更接近其他职业的战斗技能，但它们都是基础攻击的强化版本。因此，变形德鲁伊有时会让人感觉有些单调，直到等级提升并能拓展技能种类后才会有所改变。尽管如此，变形德鲁伊依然可以非常强大。例如，狂怒就是一个更强大的技能。变形德鲁伊的技能是圣骑士狂热技能的强力版本，各种被动和伪被动技能可以替代狂热效果。变形德鲁伊的一个问题是他无法施放元素技能树中的大多数法术。他唯一能施放的法术是末日浩劫，这是一个不错的火焰伤害来源，但需要投入大量资源来强化协同效果才能真正发挥威力，而且会消耗大量法力值，而这种构筑方式往往缺乏法力值。他最强的攻击手段自然是物理攻击，但他还有另一种火焰伤害来源和一个还算有用的毒素伤害技能。火焰利爪本身威力较弱（20级时每次攻击的伤害最高约为400），乍一看似乎只在中期有用。火焰利爪的协同效果也是游戏中最为复杂的之一。这种协同效果并非线性，所有相关的技能实际上都位于元素技能树中。共有五项协同技能，每级都能为火焰爪提供22%的伤害加成，使变形德鲁伊如果点出协同技能，就能造成数千点火焰伤害。与末日浩劫不同，此技能消耗的法力值不多，而且依赖于攻击速度而非施法速度。虽然需要投入大量技能点，但它是造成元素伤害的有效手段。

The Shapeshifter Druid transforms into a wolf or bear, gaining large bonuses to attack rating, moderate damage increases, and a variety of specific skills. One of the curious things about the shapeshifting skills tree is that although many of its skills are actually active skills that require continual refreshing, they operate like passive skills. Werebear and Werewolf, for example, only provide passive bonuses to stats, but they cannot be toggled. Rabies and Feral Rage both operate like passive skills as well, but must be cast. Fire Claws, Shock Wave, and Fury operate more like the combat skills of other classes, but all of them are enhanced versions of the basic attack. Sometimes the Shapeshifter Druid can feel a little monotonous for this reason, until he reaches higher levels and can diversify his skills a little bit. Nevertheless, Shapeshifter Druids can be powerful. Fury, for example, is a more powerful version of the Paladin’s Zeal skill, with the various passive and pseudo-passive skills standing in for fanaticism. One problem the Shapeshifter Druid has is that he cannot cast most of the spells in the Elemental Skill tree. The only spell he can cast is Armageddon, which is a decent source of fire damage, but it requires lots of investment in synergies to become really powerful, and eats up mana that this build doesn’t always have. Most of his best attacks are physical, naturally, but he has another source of fire damage and a somewhat useful poison damage skill. Fire Claws is naturally weak (topping out around 400 damage per strike at level 20) and seems, at first glance, like it would only be useful during the mid-game. Fire Claws also has one of the largest synergies in the game. It’s not a linear synergy; all of the contributing skills are actually in the Elemental Skills tree. There are five synergetic skills, and all of them offer a 22% bonus to Fire Claws per level, giving the Shapeshifter Druid the power to deal thousands of fire damage if he commits to the synergy. Unlike Armageddon, this skill doesn’t consume much mana, and relies on attack speed rather than casting speed. It’s a big commitment in terms of skill points, but is a viable means of delivering elemental damage.

德鲁伊也拥有类似的技能，可以通过强大的协同作用造成可观的毒素伤害。狂犬病技能有一个巧妙的特点：毒素会在敌人之间传播。因此，在敌人数量众多的情况下，玩家可以感染相当多的目标，造成可观的毒素伤害。问题在于，这是毒素伤害，在《暗黑破坏神II 》中通常难以有效利用。 《暗黑破坏神II》节奏极快，毒素伤害需要几秒钟才能生效，因此往往无法快速击杀敌人。狂犬病的伤害虽然会随着游戏进程而提升，但其持续时间也会相应增加。[ 24 ]

The Druid also has a similar ability to deal significant poison damage by means of a large synergy. The Rabies skill has a neat perk: the poison spreads from enemy to enemy. Thus, in large crowds, the player can infect quite a few targets with a decent amount of poison damage. The problem is that it’s poison damage, which is generally difficult to use in Diablo II. Diablo II is so fast-paced that poison damage, which takes place over several seconds, doesn’t always kill fast enough. Rabies damage scales nicely, but the time component also scales up.[24]

玩家可以通过标记怪物和大量带有技能词缀的物品来解决这个问题，但好的装备能让任何流派都能发挥作用。狂犬病是一个很酷的技能，但它也有一些缺点。系统性的缺陷在于，几乎所有毒素技能（除了毒素新星）都会因时间分母的增大而受到影响。

The player can get around this with mob-tagging behaviors and lots of +skill affix items, but great gear will make any build work. Rabies is a cool skill, but it has a systemic handicap in that almost all poison skills (except for Poison Nova) are hurt by expanding time denominators.

巫婆

Sorceress

流派：3种：火焰、冰霜和闪电。严格来说，这三种元素各自还有子流派，但它们之间的机制差异和策略并无太大区别，就像锤子圣骑士和狂热圣骑士之间的区别一样。

Builds: 3: Fire, Cold, and Lightning. Technically, there are sub-builds of these three elements, but the mechanical differences and strategy are not different between those builds in the same way that the Hammerdin is different from the Fanatidin.

职业优势：可以轻松造成大量远程伤害，完全使用法术，拥有游戏中最好的机动技能。

Class Strengths: Can easily put out tons of ranged damage, uses spells exclusively, has the best mobility skill in the game.

职业弱点：游戏中最为脆弱的角色。

Class Weaknesses: Most fragile character in the game.

元素可用性：高，可使用火焰、冰霜或闪电。如果玩家愿意牺牲一些最高伤害，则可以使用其中任意两种元素。

Elemental availability: High, can use Fire, Cold or Lightning. Can use any two of those if the player is willing to trade away some top-end damage.

协同作用：每个技能树中伤害最高的技能都有广泛的线性协同作用，以及强大的协同被动技能。

Synergies: Has large, linear synergies for the highest-damage skills in every tree, plus strong, synergistic passive skills.

概述：女巫是一个相对简单的职业，但也有一些明显的缺点。在前两个难度设置下，女巫很容易上手，也容易玩，但在游戏后期会面临与其他职业相同的问题。

Overview: A relatively straightforward class with some obvious drawbacks, the Sorceress is easy to build and play through the first two difficulty settings but faces the same late-game problems as every other class.

从机制上看，女巫可能是游戏中操作最简单的职业。玩家选择一个目标，然后向其施放法术直到目标死亡。女巫除了躲避（或传送）敌人之外，几乎无事可做。冰霜女巫是唯一拥有强大群体控制能力的女巫，她以牺牲伤害（所有冰霜技能都是如此）为代价换取了这种效果。冰霜女巫的整体策略与火焰或闪电女巫并无太大区别；玩家仍然需要与敌人保持距离。同样，冰霜女巫可以使用法术来提升护甲，而闪电女巫可以通过能量护盾来提升有效生命值，但玩家仍然应该保持远程攻击。不同类型的女巫之间还有一些其他细微差别。闪电和火焰女巫比冰霜女巫更能从提升施法速度的词缀中获益，但所有职业都最受益于技能等级和法力值的词缀。此外，没有任何词缀或技能会从根本上改变女巫职业的玩法。

From a mechanics standpoint, the Sorceress is probably the simplest class in the game. The player chooses a target and fires spells at it until it dies. There’s not much else for the Sorceress to do except run (or teleport) away from approaching enemies. The Cold Sorceress is the only version with significant crowd control abilities, and she trades damage (as all cold abilities do) for this effect. The overall strategy of the Cold Sorceress doesn’t differ that much from the Fire or Lightning Sorceresses; the player still keeps enemies at a distance. Likewise, Cold Sorceresses can use spells to increase their armor, and Lightning Sorceresses can increase their effective health (through Energy Shield), but the player should still be fighting at range. There are other small differences between the types of Sorceresses. Lightning and Fire Sorceresses benefit a little more from faster cast rate affixes than Cold Sorceresses do, but all the classes benefit most from +skill affixes and mana. Moreover, no affix or skill radically changes the way that the Sorceress class is played.

虽然我稍后还会再提到，但我想先说说女巫的位移技能——传送术。从职业角度来看，传送术的有趣之处在于它完美地体现了女巫的设计理念。传送术是一个非常棒的位移技能，但与其他职业的类似技能不同，它没有落地效果。因此，传送术更适合让女巫脱离战斗，而不是让她进入战斗。这正是我们对一个始终远程攻击、尽可能避免近身作战的职业的预期。

Although I’ll address it again later, I want to mention Teleport, the Sorceress’s mobility skill. The interesting thing about teleport, from the perspective of character classes, is that it embodies the Sorceress’s design philosophy so well. Teleport is a terrific mobility skill, but unlike the similar skills of other classes, it doesn’t have a landing effect. Thus, Teleport is much better at getting the Sorceress out of battle than into it. This is exactly what we would expect from a class that is always supposed to be firing from range and avoiding contact at all costs.

动作角色扮演游戏和《暗黑破坏神II》的动作传承

The Action RPG and Diablo II’s Action Heritage

《暗黑破坏神》（Diablo）是《暗黑破坏神II》（Diablo II）的前作，最初是一款相当传统的roguelike游戏。虽然该项目仍处于早期开发阶段，但暴雪的主要团队……项目负责人告诉大卫·布雷维克，游戏引擎应该采用实时运行。这一决定极大地改变了开发进程，并引入了许多并非roguelike子类型固有的重要游戏设计理念。由于《暗黑破坏神》最初是一款roguelike游戏，它与roguelike游戏原型之间的关系相当直接：它将roguelike概念改编，以迎合大众市场。《暗黑破坏神II》与其动作游戏先驱之间的关系则更为复杂，也更具理论性。《暗黑破坏神II》最伟大的成就之一，在于它通过程序生成的方式重现了动作游戏的基本结构（西角动作）。本节将探讨《暗黑破坏神II》的动作游戏传承，并阐释它如何从角色扮演游戏（RPG）的角度重新诠释这一传承。

Diablo, the predecessor to Diablo II, began its life as a fairly orthodox roguelike. While the project was still early in development, the main Blizzard team that oversaw the project told David Brevik that the game engine should work in real time. This decision changed the course of development in a big way, and introduced many important game design ideas that are not native to the roguelike subgenre. Because it started as a roguelike, Diablo’s relationship to its roguelike source material is fairly straightforward; it adapts roguelike concepts for a mass-market audience. The relationship between Diablo II and its action-game ancestors is more complicated and theoretical. One of Diablo II’s greatest achievements is the way it recreates the fundamental structure of action games (Nishikado motion) through procedural means. This section will look at the action heritage of Diablo II and explain the way it reinterprets that heritage through an RPG lens.

在探讨动作角色扮演游戏（ARPG）的历史之前，我想先解决一个问题：如何定义“升级”。评论家和玩家一直在争论，一款动作游戏要达到什么程度才能称得上真正的动作角色扮演游戏，而不仅仅是动作游戏或动作冒险游戏。（大卫·布雷维克本人在另一次采访中也思考过这个问题[ 25 ]，但并未给出明确的答案。）例如，很多人质疑《塞尔达传说》系列游戏是否真的属于角色扮演游戏。我认为它们是，因为林克可以随着时间推移获得更多的生命值、魔法值、力量等等。这些提升通常与经验值无关，也不属于明确的“角色等级”，但这是否意味着这款游戏就不是角色扮演游戏呢？对我而言，《塞尔达传说》仍然是角色扮演游戏，因为这些提升本质上就是升级。升级是指玩家角色能力的永久性、周期性提升。当林克获得更多心之容器时，他的最大生命值会永久增加，这种永久性提升就构成了升级。当林克获得大师之剑时，他的实力相比初始武器有了显著提升，并且他将在整个游戏过程中都拥有这把剑。这些提升都与获取战利品有关，但正如我们将在本书中多次看到的，战利品往往是升级最重要的途径。林克在每个主要迷宫中都会获得一项或多项此类提升。这里的“升级”指的是以迷宫数量而非经验值来衡量。无论你是否认同，这个定义对于本书的后续内容都至关重要。

One issue I want to tackle before looking at the history of the action RPG is how to define the level-up. Critics and fans have argued about the point at which an action game has enough RPG content that it becomes a true action RPG, instead of just being an action or action-adventure game. (David Brevik himself pondered this question in another interview[25] without coming to a conclusive answer.) For example, many question whether The Legend of Zelda games are really RPGs. I say that they are, because Link can gain more health, magic, strength, etc. over time. These gains are usually not connected to experience points, nor are they part of explicit “character levels,” but does that mean the game is not an RPG? For me, Zelda is still an RPG, because these things are still level-ups. A level-up is a permanent, periodic increase in the power of a player-character. When Link gains more heart containers, his maximum life is permanently increased, and that permanency makes it a level-up. When he gains the use of the Master Sword, it represents a significant increase in power over the starting sword, and he has it for the rest of the game. These gains are all connected to finding loot, but as we’ll see many more times in this book, loot is often the most important kind of level-up. Link makes one or more of these gains in every major dungeon. The period is simply measured in dungeons rather than being measured in EXP. Whether or not you agree, this definition is enormously important to the rest of this book.

动作角色扮演游戏的诞生

The Birth of the Action RPG

当角色扮演游戏（RPG）开始出现在个人电脑和家用游戏机上时，蓬勃发展的数字动作游戏世界与历史悠久的桌面角色扮演游戏世界之间的设计理念相互渗透就不可避免了。对于角色扮演游戏的设计师来说，这无疑是一大福音，因为它为他们提供了一种摆脱《龙与地下城》（D&D）巨大影响的新途径。尽管《龙与地下城》的系统非常完善，但它从未实现过像《太空侵略者》、《吃豆人》或《小蜜蜂》这类动作游戏中常见的实时操作挑战。（平心而论，我们很难想象它究竟该如何做到这一点。）通过在角色扮演游戏系统的基础上融入动作游戏的挑战，设计师可以将他们最喜欢的角色扮演游戏元素与各种动作游戏子类型相结合。最终的成果将是一款与任何一种“父母”都截然不同的混合游戏。我称之为“组合策略”，它允许设计师将相对传统的角色扮演游戏元素巧妙地隐藏在动作游戏的外衣之下。

Once RPGs started to appear on PC and home videogame consoles, it was inevitable that design ideas would leak between the booming world of digital action games and the older world of tabletop RPGs. For designers of RPGs, this was a boon, for it gave them another way to escape from the overshadowing influence of D&D. For all of its systemic completeness, D&D never implemented the kind of real-time dexterity challenges found in action games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, or Galaga. (It’s difficult to imagine exactly how it could do so, to be fair.) By implementing action-game challenges against a background of RPG systems, designers could combine their favorite parts of RPGs with any of the various action subgenres. The result would be a hybrid game that felt significantly different from either of its parents. I call this the combination strategy, which allows designers to disguise relatively old RPG tropes in the clothes of an action game.

动作角色扮演游戏对角色扮演游戏的设计和受众产生了重大而直接的历史影响。首先，动作角色扮演游戏将角色扮演游戏这种形式引入了主机游戏玩家群体，而这些玩家此前从未在桌面游戏中接触过这种游戏形式。例如《塞尔达传说》、 《地牢围攻》、《战斧》、 《圣剑传说》等游戏。《伊苏》教会了主机游戏玩家如何玩角色扮演游戏，因为它允许他们依靠现有的动作游戏技能来弥补角色扮演游戏知识的不足。

The action RPG had a major and immediate historical impact on the design—and audience—of RPGs. For one thing, the action RPG was the genre that introduced the RPG form to console gamers who had never seen it on the tabletop. Games like The Legend of Zelda, Gauntlet, Golden Axe, Secret of Mana, and Ys taught console game players how to play RPGs by allowing them to rely on their existing action-game skills to compensate for their lack of RPG knowledge.

两条难度曲线

Two Difficulty Curves

在动作游戏设计史上，第一款至今仍具有重要意义的游戏是《太空侵略者》（1978）。这款游戏的设计师西角友宏同时也是街机设备的工程师。由于当时处理器的技术限制，西角友宏发现屏幕上的外星人数量越少，它们的移动速度就越快。

The first game that is still relevant to the history of action game design is Space Invaders (1978). The designer of that game, Tomohiro Nishikado, was also the engineer responsible for the construction of its arcade machinery. Because of the technical limitations of the processor he used, Nishikado discovered that the aliens moved faster when there were fewer of them on screen.

这使得游戏中每个关卡的难度都会随着玩家的推进而增加。西角友作并没有修正这一特殊特性，而是将其保留为一项设计特色。事实上，他还通过让每个后续关卡的初始难度略微提高来强化这一特性，从而在宏观层面上重申了他这种偶然的难度结构。

This causes each level in the game to become more difficult as the player progresses through it. Rather than correct for this unusual property, Nishikado kept it as a design feature. Indeed, he embellished it by making each successive level start at a slightly higher level of difficulty, thus reiterating his serendipitous difficulty structure at the macro level.

我将电子游戏难度的这种上下波动称为“西角动”。西角动是几乎所有主流电子游戏设计的基础结构。即使在如今玩家心理学研究和兴趣曲线图如此发达的时代，西角动仍然是主流电子游戏设计的核心支柱。

I call this up-and-down motion in videogame difficulty Nishikado motion. Nishikado motion is the fundamental structure that underpins nearly all of mainstream videogame design. Even today in the era of extensive player psychology research and interest-curve diagrams, Nishikado motion remains the central pillar of mainstream videogame design.

传统角色扮演游戏（RPG）的难度结构与主流电子游戏截然不同。各种类型的游戏都会教授玩家克服后续挑战所需的技能。而在动作游戏中，玩家往往无法完全掌握技能，可能只能部分掌握，甚至会忘记游戏中教授的灵巧操作技巧。动作游戏的快节奏也容易让玩家精疲力竭，即使只玩几分钟，他们的手眼协调能力也会受到影响。西角动作系统（Nishikado Motion）通过在激烈的战斗中穿插间歇来解决这个问题，让玩家恢复体力，并补习他们缺乏或已经遗忘的技能。传统角色扮演游戏则不同。在角色扮演游戏中，玩家的角色会进行大部分的学习。角色需要学习如何开锁、施放火球、格挡剑击以及与动物交流。玩家只需发出指令并掷骰子即可。因此，角色扮演游戏可以拥有更为线性的难度曲线。此外，由于传统角色扮演游戏中的大多数内容都依赖于数值，因此角色扮演游戏设计师实际上更容易精确地调整难度曲线。但这并不意味着所有角色扮演游戏的难度都是完全线性的。即使是最好的角色扮演游戏，如果玩家没有做出某些选择，不同任务之间的难度也会有所不同，但与主机游戏相比，桌面角色扮演游戏对难度曲线起伏变化的重视程度较低（也并非必要）。

Difficulty in traditional RPGs is structured very differently than it is in mainstream videogames. Games of all kinds teach the skills that players need to learn in order to overcome later challenges. In action games, players can often fail to learn, might only partially learn, or might even forget the dexterity skills that a game teaches. Players of action games can also become literally exhausted by the demands of a fast-paced action game, and their hand-eye coordination can suffer after levels as short as a few minutes. Nishikado motion accommodates this by routinely delivering lulls in the intense action, to let the player regain their stamina and catch up on skills they lack, or that they have forgotten. Traditional RPGs are different. In an RPG, the player’s character does most of the learning. It’s the character who learns how to pick locks, cast fireballs, parry sword-strikes, and speak with animals. The player just has to declare the action and roll dice. Thus, RPGs can afford a more linear difficulty curve. What’s more, because most things in a traditional RPG depend on statistics, it’s actually a lot easier for RPG designers to precisely tune their difficulty curves. This is not to say that all RPGs are perfectly linear in terms of difficulty. Even the best RPGs are inconsistent from quest to quest if the player hasn’t made certain choices, but the overall emphasis on undulating arcs of difficulty is less prevalent (and less necessary) in tabletop-style RPGs than it is in console videogames.

虽然传统角色扮演游戏（RPG）的平衡性可能比同等规模的动作游戏更容易一些，但某些RPG的平衡难度却高于其他RPG。《暗黑破坏神II》和大多数带有roguelike元素的游戏一样，由于大量运用随机性和程序生成，偶尔会出现平衡性问题。《暗黑破坏神II》的波动性与其他roguelike游戏略有不同，它更加注重积极的变化。也就是说，在《Rogue》、《Angband》和《Moria》中，运气好的玩家可能勉强才能完成最难的挑战。而在《暗黑破坏神II》中，运气好的玩家可以迅速成为所向披靡的半神。这是一个有意为之的设计决策，它影响了《暗黑破坏神II》的方方面面，从怪物的构造到掉落机制的运作方式。然而，《暗黑破坏神II》难度最有趣的地方之一在于，它与西角（Nishikado）的动作节奏非常相似。虽然并不完全相同，但两者之间显然存在相似之处。我将这种难度曲线称为谢弗变式，以谢弗兄弟的名字命名，其中一位（马克斯）最先向我解释了这种现象，并且他们在《火炬之光》系列中也继续使用这种结构。（我想在此指出，布雷维克和设计师斯蒂格·赫德伦在塑造这种设计结构方面也发挥了重要作用；这显然是团队合作的成果。此外，布雷维克在他后来的游戏中也尝试过这种动态变化。）[ 26 , 27 ]谢弗变式本质上就是通过程序化手段实现的西角动作。在本书第三章中，我们将详细讨论这一概念。在本书中，我们将详细探讨这一现象是如何发生的，但谢弗变分的概念贯穿全书，非常重要。

Although traditional RPGs are probably a little easier to balance than action games of equal scope, certain RPGs are harder to balance than others. Diablo II, like most games that have some roguelike DNA, has an occasional balance issue stemming from its widespread use of randomness and procedural generation. Diablo II’s volatility is a little different from its roguelike counterparts in that there’s a much greater emphasis on positive variation. That is, in Rogue, Angband and Moria, lucky players will barely finish the hardest challenges. In Diablo II, lucky players can quickly become unstoppable demigods. This is an intentional design decision, one that shaped that everything in Diablo II, from the construction of monsters to the way that loot tables work. One of the most interesting things we’ll see about Diablo II’s difficulty, however, is that it is very similar to the up-and-down rhythm of Nishikado motion. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s clearly analogous. I call this type of difficulty curve Schaefer variation, after the Schafer brothers, one of whom (Max) first explained the phenomenon to me, and who continue to use the structure in the Torchlight series. (I want to note here that Brevik and designer Stieg Hedlund also had a considerable role in shaping this design structure; it was clearly a group effort. Moreover, Brevik has toyed with the dynamic in his later games as well.)[26,27] Schaefer variation is simply Nishikado motion accomplished through procedural means. In Chapter 3 of this book, we’ll take a look at the exact details of how this happens, but the idea of Schaefer variation is an important one throughout this book.

《暗黑破坏神II》的动作部分

The Action Parts of Diablo II

《暗黑破坏神II 》中动作游戏类型的影响远不止于理论上的体现。它无疑是一款动作游戏，其动作机制塑造了玩家的游戏体验，使其在同类型游戏中脱颖而出。没有两款动作角色扮演游戏在平衡和融合动作与角色扮演元素方面是完全相同的。例如，史上最著名的动作角色扮演游戏系列《塞尔达传说》就非常依赖其动作机制在非战斗中的应用。无论是用回旋镖击打开关、用钩爪跃过深渊，还是在第一根火炬熄灭前点燃一系列火炬，游戏中许多任务都考验玩家的灵巧度和时机把握，但并不涉及战斗。在这些时刻，游戏几乎完全转向了动作游戏类型。因此，我们可以说，《塞尔达传说》系列游戏比《暗黑破坏神II》更依赖于其动作元素。 《暗黑破坏神》的动作机制几乎完全围绕战斗构建。与此相反，在非战斗时刻，《暗黑破坏神II》的玩家会进行诸如制作或管理装备之类的活动，这部分游戏内容几乎完全依赖于角色扮演系统。玩家在战斗之外使用的唯一动作机制是用于探索地下城的强化移动技能，例如传送、跳跃或加速爆发。然而，《暗黑破坏神II》中的所有探索活动都会频繁地被战斗打断。当我们谈到动作类型在《暗黑破坏神II》中的作用时，我们指的就是战斗。

The influence of the action genre runs much deeper in Diablo II than merely theoretical ideas. Diablo II is definitely an action game, and its action mechanics shape the player’s experience in ways that separate it from other games in the same genre. No two action RPGs are the same in the way that they balance and mix their action and RPG components. For example, the most famous action RPG series of all time, The Legend of Zelda, depends heavily upon the non-combat applications of its action mechanics. Whether it’s hitting switches with a boomerang, leaping chasms with a hookshot, or lighting a series of torches before the first one burns out, there are many tasks that depend on player dexterity and sense of timing but do not involve combat. During those moments, the game almost moves entirely into the action genre. Thus, we could say that Zelda games depend a lot more on their action components than Diablo II does. Diablo’s action mechanics are almost entirely built around combat. In the moments when they’re not fighting, by contrast, players of Diablo II are doing things like crafting or managing gear, which is a part of the game that depends almost entirely on RPG systems. The only action mechanic that the player uses outside of combat is enhanced movement for exploring dungeons, like Teleport, Leap, or Burst of Speed. Then again, all exploration in Diablo II is frequently interrupted by combat. When we talk about the role of the action genre in Diablo II, we’re talking about combat.

《暗黑破坏神》最初的设计理念是一款传统的回合制Roguelike游戏。当游戏改为实时制时，许多基本的RPG机制也必须随之改变。传统的RPG游戏采用回合制，每个玩家角色或敌人都有一次行动的机会，行动顺序取决于其模拟技能和概率。在回合中，每个角色可以移动一次并攻击一次，略有不同。当采用实时制，所有角色同时进行“回合”时，这种久经考验的机制会发生什么变化？所有这些机制要么需要调整，要么需要舍弃。《暗黑破坏神II》在很大程度上以直接、直观的方式将这些机制适配到实时制中，并将重点放在模拟技能上，但也存在一些针对动作游戏的调整。以下部分将分析《暗黑破坏神II》如何将RPG理念融入动作游戏，以及这些调整对游戏整体的影响。角色职业部分已经简要介绍过部分内容，但在这里我们将花更多时间讲解动作能力的具体机制，重点是定量分析和图表绘制。

Diablo was originally conceived as a traditional, turn-based roguelike. When the game was altered to operate in real time, many of its fundamental RPG mechanics had to change as well. Traditional RPGs take place in discrete turns. Each player-character or enemy gets a chance to act in the order that their simulated skills and chance allow. During their turns, each character can move once and attack once, with some small variations. What happens to this time-tested procedure when real time is applied, and everyone is taking their “turn” at once? All those mechanics either need to be adapted or dropped. For the most part, Diablo II adapts them to real time in straightforward, intuitive ways that place most of the emphasis on simulated skills, but there are some action-specific adaptations as well. The following section will analyze each of the ways that Diablo II adapts RPG ideas into an action context, and the implications for the game as a whole. Some of this material was briefly covered in the character class section, but here we’ll spend more time on the exact mechanical operation of action abilities with an emphasis on quantitative analysis and diagramming.

移动

Movement

《暗黑破坏神II》中的移动机制大多比较简单。所有角色的移动速度都以码/秒为单位。奔跑速度比行走速度快50%，但奔跑时没有有效的防御加成。游戏中有许多物品可以提升移动速度，尤其是独特的靴子和魔法护符。许多高手玩家会通过这些装备来最大化移动速度，将其作为刷怪/升级过程中不可或缺的一部分。但就像这些玩家追求的许多其他方面一样，随着角色速度接近最大值，这些加成带来的收益会显著递减。

Most movement in Diablo II is uncomplicated. All characters move at a speed measured in yards per second. Characters run 50% faster than they walk, but while running, they have no effective defense rating. There are lots of items that grant increased movement speed, especially unique boots and magical charms. Many expert players seek to max out their movement speed through these items as an essential part of farming/leveling runs. Like many of the things that these players seek to max out, these bonuses suffer significant diminishing returns as the character nears maximum speed.

速度提升很快就会趋于平缓。实时效果的收益递减是本节将反复提及的主题。虽然许多极限玩家仍然坚持追求极致速度，但这些收益递减机制旨在鼓励玩家寻求更均衡的装备搭配。也就是说，技能（例如活力或爆发速度）提供的速度加成与其他速度加成叠加时不会出现收益递减——尽管这些技能每投入一点技能点所提供的加成会降低。我将在下文的单独章节中讨论移动技能。

The gains in speed flatten out quickly. Diminishing returns on real-time effects is a theme we’ll be revisiting often in this section. While many ultra-hardcore players still insist on having maximum speed, these diminishing returns are in place to encourage players to seek a more balanced approach to their gear. That said, speed bonuses granted by abilities (like Vigor or Burst of Speed) do not experience diminishing returns when combined with other speed bonuses—although the skills do grant lower bonuses per point invested in them. I will discuss movement abilities in their own section, below.

怪物移动

Monster Movement

《暗黑破坏神II》中的怪物大多遵循与玩家相同的规则。它们的奔跑和行走速度是固定的，虽然可以通过词缀和光环来提升。一些怪物可以像玩家角色一样跳跃和传送，但它们使用这些技能的间隔时间似乎比玩家长得多——这可能是因为它们的移动机制中内置了特殊的计时器，否则每场战斗的难度都会几乎和玩家对战一样高。游戏中还有一些词缀可以提升怪物的速度。冠军和狂热者敌人的移动速度比普通敌人更快，而任何带有“超快”词缀的独特敌人移动速度都会翻倍。由于这些速度加成是基于技能而非装备（敌人不会穿戴装备），因此敌人的速度加成不会出现收益递减，所以游戏中一些速度最快的敌人……如果它们恰好进入程序生成的敌人的移动速度加成范围内，速度就会变得异常惊人。这是我们将在第三章中看到的，由于程序生成的失误，游戏难度会突然飙升的方式之一。

Monsters in Diablo II mostly follow the same rules as players. They have set run and walk speeds, although these can be increased by affixes and auras. Some monsters can leap and teleport, much like player characters can, although they appear to wait much longer between uses of these abilities than players do—probably because of a special timer built into their movement behavior, or else every battle would be nearly as difficult as player-vs-player combat. There are several monster affixes that enhance their speed as well. Champions and Fanatic enemies move faster than normal, and any unique enemy with the “extra fast” affix will move at double speed. Because these speed bonuses are based on abilities rather than gear (which enemies don’t wear), the enemy speed bonus does not experience diminishing returns, and so some of the fastest enemies in the game can become terrifyingly fast if they happen to fall within a movement speed buff of a procedurally spawned enemy. This is one of the ways in which we’ll see (in Chapter 3) how the difficulty of the game can suddenly spike thanks to unfortunate procedural generation.

敌人有两种玩家无法使用的移动方式：飞行和相位移动。拾荒者这类敌人可以飞越战场，免疫所有攻击，然后降落发动攻击（下图左）。

There are two modes of enemy movement that the player doesn’t have: flying and phasing. The Scavenger class of enemies can fly over the battlefield, immune to all attacks, before landing to strike (below, left).

这是唯一一类拥有这种移动方式的敌人，这种移动方式虽然能给敌人带来一些优势，但由于它们在飞行中无法攻击，因此优势微乎其微。同样，黑魂（上图右侧）可以脱离现实，在移动过程中变得难以被发现（因此也难以被击中）。黑魂极其危险，因为它们可以快速地出现、攻击玩家，然后再次脱离现实。虽然许多移动能力（例如洞穴跳跃者的跳跃）都令人头疼，但只有这种能力无需程序生成的附加属性就能显著提升敌人的危险性。

This is the only family of enemies which moves like this, and it gives the enemy minimal advantage, as they cannot attack while in flight. Similarly, Black Souls (above, right) can phase out of reality, becoming hard to see (and therefore hit) while moving. The Black Soul can be exceedingly dangerous because of how quickly it can phase in, take a shot at the player, and then phase out again. Although many movement abilities (like the Cave Leaper’s jump) are annoying to deal with, this is the only one that makes an enemy significantly more dangerous without a procedurally added affix.

玩家角色及其移动选项

Player Characters and Their Movement Options

除了一个（显而易见的）例外，近战职业拥有最佳的特殊移动选项。与基础移动一样，这些能力并不特别复杂。规则如下：

With one (glaring) exception, melee classes have the best special movement options. Like basic movement, these abilities are not especially complicated. The rules are as follows:

1.玩家角色必须能够看到目标位置。

1.The player-character must have line of sight to the target location

2.技能的终点位置必须是可通行的（不能是墙壁或坑洞）。

2.The ending location of the ability must be navigable (not a wall or a pit)

3.角色与最终目的地之间不得有任何无法逾越的障碍。

3.There must be no impassable obstructions between the character and the ending destination

这些规则相当简单明了。前两条规则对所有移动技能一视同仁；最后一条规则则因技能而异。地面移动移动技能会受到敌人攻击，因此可以被打断；而跳跃的野蛮人则没有这个问题。然而，移动的便捷性并非衡量移动技能实用性的唯一因素。移动速度、移动距离、法力消耗和时间消耗，以及对敌人的影响等因素都会影响技能的实用性。圣骑士和野蛮人的移动技能都内置了威力不错的攻击，但速度和范围都不算特别快。刺客的“疾速爆发”技能可以轻松持续，并附带攻击力加成，但很容易被打断。女巫的“传送”技能消耗的法力值是其他移动技能的两倍，而且对敌人没有影响，还会使施法者自身处于一定的脆弱状态。然而，“传送”技能可以让玩家比游戏中任何其他技能更快地穿越地图，并且除了地图边缘之外，不会与地形物体发生碰撞。游戏中许多最受欢迎的物品（例如令人垂涎的“谜团”符文之语）都将“传送”技能作为其主要增益效果提供给非女巫职业。这项技能实在太吸引人了，不容错过。

These rules are fairly straightforward. The first two apply to all movement skills equally; the last rule varies in its application from skill to skill. Ground-based movement abilities are subject to enemy attacks and can be stopped as such; a leaping Barbarian does not have the same problem. Ease of movement isn’t the only factor in the utility of a movement skill, however. Other things like movement speed, movement distance, mana and time costs, and impact on enemies all affect the usefulness of an ability. The Paladin and Barbarian movement skills have reasonably strong attacks built into them but aren’t terribly fast or far-reaching. The Assassin’s Burst of Speed ability is easy to sustain indefinitely and includes an attack buff but is easily stopped. The Sorceress’s Teleport is twice as expensive as other movement skills, and has no effect on enemies, and it leaves the caster somewhat vulnerable. Yet, Teleport can move the player across the landscape faster than any other skill in the game, and doesn’t collide with terrain objects except map edges. Many of the game’s most popular items (like the coveted Enigma runeword) offer the Teleport skill to non-Sorceresses as their primary benefit. The skill is simply too desirable to pass up.

从《暗黑破坏神II》的移动机制设计中，我们可以学到三个关于游戏设计的重要经验。首先，如果你设计的是一款动作角色扮演游戏，玩家肯定会找到利用动作机制来解决游戏中的问题。所有类型的动作游戏（无论是平台跳跃游戏、生存恐怖游戏还是开放世界游戏）都有一个共同点：玩家最终都会学会避开大多数敌人。很多敌人要么没有奖励，要么奖励微不足道。在拥有强大跑跳能力的游戏中，玩家很容易（也很明智地）避开所有这些遭遇战。（在YouTube上，有很多视频专门展示玩家在《黑暗之魂》/《恶魔之魂》系列游戏中长时间这样做。）果不其然， 《暗黑破坏神II》的资深玩家也是这么做的。无论是赶往巴尔或墨菲斯托处，还是在下层库拉斯特四处奔走寻找传说中的超级宝箱，玩家都会利用角色的移动技能，钻各种捷径和AI的空子，从而避免与敌人交战。传送技能在这里又一次显得过于强大；它不造成任何伤害，也没有眩晕或击退效果。不过，如果玩家只是想避免战斗，这些效果也就无所谓了。

There are three great object lessons about game design that we can learn from the way that movement abilities in Diablo II are configured. The first lesson is that, if you’re designing an action RPG, you can bet that players will find ways to employ action solutions to your RPG problems. One theme common to action games of all genres (whether platformers, survival horror or anything in the open-world format) is that players eventually learn to avoid most enemies. Many enemies offer either no reward, or only a trivial one. In a game with powerful running and jumping abilities, it is easy (and sensible) for the player to avoid all of these encounters. (There is an entire genre of YouTube videos where players do this for long stretches in Dark/Demon’s Souls games.) Sure enough, that’s what experienced players in Diablo II do. Whether it’s rushing to Baal or Mephisto, or running around Lower Kurast looking for the infamous super-chests located there, players use their character’s movement skills to exploit all manner of shortcut and AI patterns in order not to fight enemies. This is yet another area in which the Teleport skill is overpowered; it deals no damage and has no stun or knockback effects. It doesn’t need them, though, if the player is simply avoiding combat.

最后一点很好地引出了第二点：质的差异并不等同于战术上的平衡。两者都是优秀职业系统不可或缺的组成部分。在前三篇“逆向设计”文章中，我论证了电子游戏设计中的质的差异被严重低估。我在此依然坚持这一观点，但有一个重要的前提：质的差异只有在数量上的差异不会使其变得多余时才有意义。如果游戏中有两条路线，其中一条比另一条难得多，却没有相应的奖励，那么它们在质上是否不同就无关紧要了。玩家会根据难度来选择路线。角色扮演游戏（RPG）的技能也是如此。野蛮人和圣骑士的移动技能手感再好——尽管正确使用它们确实能让你感觉自己很厉害——但如果它们在速度和范围上远远落后于传送术，那就毫无意义。人们很容易反驳说：“但是女巫很脆弱啊！”没错，但是记住，我们这里讨论的是机动性和躲避敌人。如果玩家能够灵活地快速避开所有危险，那么脆弱性就无关紧要了。为了让玩家能够在性质不同的选项中自由选择，这些选项的有效性必须大致相当。

That last point makes for a good segue into the second lesson, which is that qualitative differences are not the same as tactical balances. Both of those things are necessary parts of a good class system. In the previous three Reverse Designs, I made the case that qualitative differences in videogame design are greatly underappreciated. I maintain that stance here, with one important caveat: qualitative differences only matter if the quantitative differences don’t make them obsolete. If there are two paths through a game, and one of them is much harder than the other without any commensurate reward, it doesn’t matter if they’re qualitatively different. Players are going to choose based on difficulty. The same thing applies to RPG abilities. It doesn’t matter how great the Barbarian and Paladin movement skills feel—though they do make you feel like a badass when you use them right—if they lag way behind Teleport in speed and range. It’s tempting to counter this with “but Sorceresses are fragile!” That’s correct, but remember that we’re talking about mobility and avoiding enemies here. Fragility hardly matters if the player is deftly zooming past anything dangerous. In order for players to be able to choose freely among qualitatively different options, those options must be roughly equal in effectiveness.

从《暗黑破坏神II 》的移动技能中我们可以学到的第三个教训是：游戏设计问题总有许多富有创意的解决方案，但这些方案必须在它们所应用的游戏背景下合理。《暗黑破坏神II》的移动问题在于传送技能过于强大，而设计师们也意识到了这一点。传送技能与女巫职业——乃至整个游戏——的关联性太强，以至于设计师们无法大幅移除或削弱它。他们的解决方案是让所有职业都能通过各种物品（例如护身符、法杖甚至盔甲）获得传送技能。这正是《暗黑破坏神II》的核心策略。该游戏的设计理念包含一个原则：任何角色都应该有机会成为强大的半神。传送技能正是这一策略的一部分，而且由于任何职业都能获得传送技能，因此它在《暗黑破坏神II》的背景下是合理的。设计师们并没有削弱某个职业及其技能，而是通过增加传送技能来增强其他职业。

The third lesson we can learn from movement skills in Diablo II is that there are always lots of creative solutions to game design problems, but those solutions need to make sense in the context of the game they apply to. The problem with movement in Diablo II is that Teleport is too powerful, and the designers knew it. Teleport is also far too resonant with the Sorceress class—and really, the game in general—for the designers to remove or nerf it too harshly. Their solution was to offer Teleport to any class on a variety of items like amulets, staves, or even armor. This is the quintessential Diablo II strategy. The design philosophy of Diablo II includes the tenet that any character should be able to become an overpowered demigod. Teleportation is a part of that strategy, and inasmuch as any class can gain Teleport, it makes sense in the context of Diablo II. Rather than nerf one class and its abilities, the designers simply make the other classes more powerful by addition.

人群控制技巧

Crowd Control Skills

只有少数职业拥有大幅提升移动速度的技能。然而，所有职业都拥有相反的技能，可以减缓敌人的速度甚至完全阻止他们移动。我们在角色职业部分已经介绍过一些相关内容，但在这里我们将更侧重于游戏中各种群体控制技能的具体作用机制。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，尤其是对于经验不足的玩家来说，最常见的问题之一就是被敌人包围。

Only a few classes have skills that greatly enhance their movement. All classes, however, have the reverse, skills that make enemies slower or stop them entirely. We’ve already covered some of this in the section on character classes, but here we’re going to pay more attention to the particular action dynamics of the various crowd control abilities in the game. One of the most common problems in Diablo II, especially for inexperienced players, is becoming surrounded by enemies.

数量众多时，这些敌人甚至可以杀死原本几乎无法伤到的玩家角色。如果玩家缺乏传送或跳跃等逃生技能，或者因为敌人太多而无法使用这些技能，该怎么办？答案当然是人群控制技能，它可以限制或改变敌方人群的移动方向。

In large numbers, these enemies can even kill player-characters whom they ordinarily could hardly touch. What can a player do if they lack the escape skills like Teleport or Leap—or can’t use them because the crowd of enemies is too big? The answer is, of course, crowd control skills, which either restrict or redirect the movement of that enemy mob.

理解《暗黑破坏神II》中的群体控制机制，首先要了解的是敌人AI是如何控制这些群体的。Brevik和Hedlund都解释说，除了Boss之外，游戏中的AI非常基础。[ 29 , 30 ]大多数普通敌人可以闲置、移动或攻击。一些敌人还有简单的闪避机制，例如黑暗弓箭手会逃离玩家并进行远程攻击，洞穴跳跃者只会进入近战范围进行短暂的游击战。除了这些偶尔出现的小变化之外，普通敌人的行动模式与传统的电子游戏群体模式类似。群体指的是任何一群敌人，它们的主要行动模式就是向玩家发起攻击。在下图所示的示意图中，红色圆圈代表敌人，蓝色圆圈代表玩家。

The first thing to understand when it comes to crowd control dynamics in Diablo II is how the enemy AI controls those crowds. Brevik and Hedlund both explained that, except for bosses, AI in the game is very rudimentary.[29,30] Most normal enemies can idle, move, or attack. Some enemies also have a simple evasion script, like the Dark Archer, who will flee the player to perform a ranged attack, or the Cave Leaper, who only comes into melee range to make brief hit-and-run strikes. Aside from these occasional, small variations, common enemies operate in the traditional videogame herd. A herd is any group of enemies whose primary movement pattern is to simply collapse on the player. In the diagram below, the red circles are enemies, and the blue one is the player.

无论敌人群最初呈何种形状，它们最终都会聚集在目标周围，形成一个无定形的群体。玩家可以利用这一点，无论是否拥有群体控制技能，都能采取一些策略。除了少数例外（例如幽灵和飞行敌人），敌人之间无法互相穿过。由于敌人的AI非常原始，速度大致相近的大群敌人会逐渐拉长，沿着一条向玩家移动的路径前进。敌人群及其三种基本形态（初始状态、无定形群体和拉长状态）对于群体控制机制至关重要，我们将在下文中详细介绍。

No matter what shape a herd begins in, the enemies in that herd will collapse to form an amorphous blob around their target. The player can take advantage of this in a few ways, with or without crowd control abilities. With a few exceptions (Ghosts, flying enemies), enemies cannot move through one another. Because their AI is so rudimentary, large groups of enemies of roughly similar speed will slowly get stretched out in a path moving toward the player. The herd and its three basic shapes (initial placement, amorphous blob, and stretched-out) are an important to the way that crowd control works, as we’ll see below.

人群控制技能的分类

Categories of Crowd Control Skills

群体控制技能分为三类：减速、击退和干扰。这些技能都很有用，但它们对游戏中不断涌现的实时群体敌人产生不同的效果。减速可以降低群体敌人的移动速度。（请注意，我将所有眩晕效果都归入减速类别，因为眩晕的群体控制效果与减速效果基本相同。）最常见的减速类减益效果是冰冻伤害造成的冰冻效果。

There are three categories of crowd control skills: slows, repels, and distractions. All of these are useful, but they have different effects on the real-time crowds that the game hurls at the player over and over. Slows reduce the movement of enemies in a group. (Note that I include all stuns in the slow category because the crowd-control impact of stuns is essentially the same as those of slow effects.) The most prevalent example of the slow-type debuff is the chill effect from cold damage.

大多数冰霜伤害会使敌人减速约一半，但具体减速效果会根据伤害来源和目标而有所不同。由于所有冰霜攻击都会施加此减益效果，因此冰霜伤害比同等级的其他元素伤害要弱。例如，魔法武器上35级的冰霜伤害词缀平均为每次攻击增加25点冰霜伤害，而同等级的火焰词缀则增加56点伤害。[ 31 ]也有一些冰霜攻击，例如冰霜新星，它牺牲了75%的伤害（与同等级法术相比），换取了三倍的冰冻持续时间。这只是所有冰霜伤害基本原理的延伸。同样，一些冰霜攻击可以将敌人完全冻结。与所有眩晕效果一样，这只是更强力的减速，但它也牺牲了更多的伤害，以达到最高级别的群体控制效果。

Most cold damage slows an enemy by about half, although this can vary based on the source and the target in question. Because all cold attacks apply this debuff, cold damage is weaker than other elemental damage of the same level. For example, the level-35 affix for cold damage on magical weapons adds an average of 25 cold damage to an attack, while the fire-based suffix of the same level, adds 56 damage.[31] There are also a few cold attacks, like Frost Nova, which trades away 75% of its damage (compared to same-level spells) for three times the freeze duration. This is merely an extension of the same principle that underlies all cold damage. Similarly, some cold attacks can freeze enemies solid. Like all stuns, this is just a more extreme slow, but it also trades away even more damage to achieve the highest level of crowd control.

减速效果也可以通过死灵法师的诅咒或武器词缀施加，这些词缀会出现在独特物品和套装物品上。显然，只有死灵法师才能使用诅咒，但物品造成的减速效果也有限制。与大多数减速效果一样，受益于武器减速效果的职业是远程职业。通过减速一群敌人，玩家可以拉开与它们的距离，然后从远处攻击它们。有点奇怪的是，在所有具有减速效果的独特武器中，10种是近战武器，只有2种是远程武器。（远程武器还有另一个小缺点。）尽管如此，诅咒和武器减速效果可以与冰冷效果叠加，并且可以彼此叠加，从而大幅降低敌人的移动速度。敌人能够承受的减速效果存在上限（速度降低85%或每秒降低1码，以较高者为准），尽管游戏中没有任何说明。

Slow effects can also be administered through a Necromancer curse, or through a weapon affix, which appears on unique and set items. Obviously, only the Necromancer can use curses, but the slow applied by items is also limited. As with most slows, the classes that benefit from the weapon-based slows are ranged. By slowing a herd of enemies, the player gains separation from them, and can subsequently pummel them from a distance. It’s a little strange that of the unique weapons which have a slow effect, 10 are melee weapons and only two are ranged. (Ranged weapons have yet another small drawback.) Nevertheless, curses and weapon-based slows stack additively with cold and with each other, and can greatly reduce enemy movement speed. There is a cap to the amount of slowing that an enemy can receive (an 85% reduction in speed or one yard per second, whichever is higher), although nothing in the game indicates this.

无论减速效果的类型或程度如何，使用这种群体控制手段都会产生特定的行动导向效果。在面对小群敌人时，减速效果简单易行，对群体的影响也易于预测。

Regardless of the type or degree of slow inflicted, there are specific action-oriented effects of using this type of crowd control. In the context of small groups of enemies, slowing effects are simple and have predictable impacts on the herd.

减速效果可以延缓来自一个或多个汇聚的敌人群的威胁。对于聚集在许多狭窄区域的小型敌人群来说，这种策略效果显著，但并非所有敌人群都如此小众，或者会零星地向玩家逼近。有些敌人群数量可达数十只，并且会形成一个模糊不清的群体。这些群体在面对减速效果时会呈现出不同的动态。除了少数例外（例如幽灵、传送敌人和飞行生物），怪物之间无法相互穿过。因此，受到减速减益效果影响的敌人会形成一道天然屏障，同时也会改变正在溃散的大型敌人群的形态。

Slow effects delay the threat from one or more of these converging herds. In the small groups that populate many narrower areas, this works great, but not all crowds of enemies are so small or move in toward the player piecemeal. Some herds number in the dozens and come in an indistinct blob. These groups have different dynamics when it comes to slow effects. With a few exceptions (ghosts, teleporting enemies, flying creatures), monsters cannot move through one another. Thus, enemies under the effects of a slowing debuff become a natural barrier, while giving a new shape to a large collapsing herd.

如果减速效果的范围不够大，对一群敌人施放冰霜技能或其他减速法术实际上会引发一些次要问题。敌人会分散开来围堵被减速的同伴，从而分散开来。对于远程施法者来说，如果是在风筝一群敌人（一边放风筝一边远距离攻击），这会导致目标更加分散，需要施放更多法术或进行更多风筝操作。这虽然不是什么大问题，但可以通过合理的攻击形状来解决。“寒冰锥”是一种可以追溯到桌面游戏时代的攻击技能，而锥形攻击正是解决此类问题的有效方法。这类攻击在动作游戏的经典元素中比比皆是。《暗黑破坏神II》中缺少冰属性攻击确实有些奇怪。《暗黑破坏神II》确实使用了一些锥形和直线攻击，但没有一种是冰属性的。这当然不是什么致命缺陷，但确实令人费解。

Shooting a cold ability or other slow into a crowd can actually cause secondary problems if the radius of the slowing effect is not large. The enemies will split up to come around their slowed comrades, and in doing so, spread out. For a ranged caster who’s kiting a herd (leading a herd while firing at a distance), this creates more diffuse targets, requiring more spells or more kiting. This is not a huge problem, but it’s one that could be solved by the right shape of attack. The “Cone of Cold” is an attack dating back into the tabletop years, and cone-shaped attacks are plentiful in the action game heritage. The lack of such an attack in Diablo II is a little strange. Diablo II does use a few cone-shaped and linear attacks, but none of them are cold-elemental. It’s not a game-breaking deficiency by any means, but it is a curious omission.

击退攻击

Repelling Attacks

第二种群体控制攻击类型是击退型，它通常不会减缓或阻止敌人，而是迫使他们远离攻击源。击退技能由四个特征构成：形状、来源、距离和持续时间。一些击退技能，尤其是与近战相关的技能，呈放射状。

The second type of crowd control attack is the repelling type, which does not (usually) slow or stop enemies, but forces them to move away from the source of the attack. There are four characteristics that define a repelling skill: shape, source, distance, and duration. Some repelling skills, mostly those connected to melee combat, are radial in shape.

野蛮人的“嚎叫”技能就是最好的例子，但某些武器和盔甲（例如独特的头盔“嚎叫之牙”）也能击退装备者周围小范围内的敌人。武器一次只能击退一个怪物，但使用这种击退攻击的范围技能却不允许玩家选择性地攻击目标。所有附近的敌人都会逃跑。这似乎会削弱需要近身攻击至少一个敌人的近战攻击者，但由于范围击退技能的作用范围和持续时间都不大，这个问题在一定程度上得到了缓解。持续时间和距离是击退技能的重要组成部分。像“嚎叫”这样的范围技能所提供的短暂时间和空间窗口，让玩家有足够的时间使用“跃击”之类的近战技能来锁定群体中最危险的敌人。这在清理成群敌人时比完全脱离敌人群体时更有用。

The Barbarian’s Howl skill is the best example of this, but certain weapons and armor (the unique helm Howltusk, for example) also repel enemies within a small radius of the character who equips them. Weapons only cause one monster to flee at a time, but the AoE abilities that use this kind of repelling attack don’t allow players to be selective in which enemies they target. All nearby enemies will run away. This seems like it would hurt melee attackers who need to get in close to at least one enemy, but this problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that radial repelling skills don’t have a huge area of effect, nor a long period of effect. Duration and distance are an important part of repelling skills. The small window of time and space afforded by radial skills like Howl give the player just enough time to target the most dangerous enemy of the group with an engage skill like Leap Attack. This is useful for sorting through crowds more than it is for getting out of them entirely.

另一种主要的群体控制技能类型是线性攻击。这类群体控制技能包括大多数击退技能，它们会将一个或一小群敌人沿直线击退，使其远离攻击者。由于这类技能的目标数量较少，因此它们控制的与其说是群体，不如说是群体中的单个成员。与其他群体控制技能相比，击退技能通常消耗较低且伤害较高。此外，击退效果通常是攻击的固有属性，而非……击退是一种法术。一方面，它可能会击不中目标。另一方面，它是少数几种可以轻松与其他控制技能组合使用的群体控制技能之一。即使是低等级的装备和技能，也能让聪明的玩家同时击退和冰冻敌人。事实上，这是增加击退效果有效持续时间和距离的好方法。这两个维度是所有群体控制技能的重要组成部分，但击退技能提供的距离较短，持续时间也很短。因此，这些组合可能性是击退技能长期实用性的关键。

The other major shape for repelling crowd control abilities is the linear shape. This type of crowd control includes most knockback skills, which target either one or a small group of enemies which are knocked away from the attacking character in a straight line. Because of the low number of targets on most of these skills, this type doesn’t control “crowds” quite as much as it controls individual members of that crowd. Knockback skills tend to be cheap and high-damage relative to other crowd control skills. Knockback is also usually the property of an attack rather than a spell. So, on the one hand, it can miss its target. On the other hand, it is one of the few types of crowd control that can easily be combined with other types. Even low-level gear and abilities can grant a clever player the means to both knock back and chill his or her enemies. Indeed, this is a good way to increase the effective duration and distance of knockback. Those two dimensions are an important part of all crowd control skills, but knockback offers little separation and very little duration. Thus, those combinatoric possibilities are key to the knockback’s long-term utility.

外包缓慢和排斥

Outsourcing the Slow and Repel

如果技能来源并非玩家角色自身，那么减速和击退攻击的运作机制就会有所不同。最明显的例子是死灵法师的诅咒，它可以施加各种群体控制减益效果，例如减速。这个法术呈典型的放射状，但其中心位于玩家的鼠标点击位置，而非角色的身体。这使得玩家在改变溃散人群的形态时拥有更大的自由度，并且无需等到敌人靠近角色即可使用该技能。类似地，野蛮人可以使用放射状击退攻击“残酷护盾”，并将其放置在战场上。虽然其半径不大，但由于可以将其放置在远离野蛮人的位置，玩家可以从有利角度观察敌人的动向，而且该图腾甚至可以在地下城中阻挡通道。死灵法师的“骨墙”效果类似，但形状为线性。

Slow and repel attacks have different dynamics if the source of the skill is not the player-character’s body. The clearest example of this is Necromancer curses, which can inflict a variety of crowd-controlling debuffs, like slow. This spell is in the typical radial shape, but it’s centered on the player’s mouse click, rather than on the character’s body. This affords the player a lot more discretion in changing the shape of a collapsing herd, and also allows players to use the ability without having to wait until enemies are on top of their characters. Similarly, the Barbarian can use a radial repel attack, Grim Ward, which can be placed on the battlefield. Although its radius isn’t very large, the ability to place it away from the Barbarian gives the player an advantageous angle on enemy movements, and the totem can even obstruct passageways in dungeon settings. The Necromancer’s Bone Wall is similar in effect, but linear in shape.

击退效果垂直于玩家，而骨墙的线性形状则与玩家平行。虽然骨墙的阻挡效果大于击退效果，但如果放置得当，它仍然能像死神守卫一样有效地制造瓶颈。而且，放置骨墙的位置相当容易，因为它的来源并非玩家。

Knockback is perpendicular to the player, while the linear shape of Bone Wall runs, when placed, parallel to the player. Although Bone Wall blocks more than it repels, it nevertheless has largely the same bottleneck-creating effect as Grim Ward when used in the right spot. Putting it in the right spot is fairly easy, though, because the source isn’t the player.

敌方内讧

Enemy Infighting

某些技能可以使敌人攻击己方成员。刺客技能就是这类群体控制技能的典型例子。心灵震爆和死灵法师的诅咒“吸引”。如果不考虑怪物属性，这些群体控制技能的平衡性是合理的。“吸引”和心灵震爆的效果范围都比其他减益效果小。“吸引”对首领怪物无效；心灵震爆控制敌方怪物的几率很低。即使使用，它们仍然能分散敌人的注意力，使其无法攻击玩家，并且仍然会形成一个楔形区域，迫使未受影响的怪物绕圈移动，尽管效果范围明显缩小。如果这些减益效果能够让怪物互相攻击，从而减轻玩家的负担，那么所有这些权衡似乎都是合理的。

Certain abilities can cause enemies to target members of their own group with attacks. The notable examples of this type of crowd control are the Assassin skill Mind Blast and the Necromancer curse Attract. If you don’t consider monster stats, these crowd control abilities are balanced sensibly. Both Attract and Mind Blast have small effect radii compared to other debuffs. Attract does not work on boss mobs; Mind Blast only has a low chance of controlling enemy monsters. When used, they still distract enemies from attacking the player, and they still create the wedge around which unaffected monsters have to walk, although the size of the effect is noticeably smaller. All of this seems like a fair tradeoff if the debuff is going to cause monsters to deal damage to one another, taking some of the burden off the player.

敌方近战能力平衡的问题在于，敌人造成的伤害与其生命值相比非常低。事实上，如果将生命值与伤害值放在一起比较，你几乎看不到生命值。[ 32 ]

The problem with the balance of enemy infighting abilities is that enemies deal very little damage compared to the amount of HP they have. In fact, you can barely see the HP if you put it on a graph with damage.[32]

这种机制的出现是因为《暗黑破坏神II》更注重杀伤力而非角色生存能力。玩家角色在不牺牲其他属性的前提下，合理积累的生命值上限约为六千。而投入相同时间的纯输出角色，每秒造成的伤害可能是这个数值的四到五倍。因此，在高难度模式下，敌人拥有极高的生命值，但造成的伤害却相对较低。任何能让怪物自伤或伤其他怪物的技能都难以发挥作用。这些技能虽然能有效地牵制敌人，但“心灵震爆”持续时间很短，“吸引”的效果会被任何可能帮助死灵法师对目标造成伤害的诅咒覆盖。其他群体控制技能显然更加实用。

This dynamic exists because Diablo II puts much more emphasis on killing power than it does on character survivability. The most HP a player character could reasonably accumulate is around six thousand (without having to sacrifice every other stat). A damage-focused character with the same amount of time invested might be able to output four or five times that much damage per second. Thus, enemies have tons of HP on the harder difficulty settings, but deal relatively little damage. Any skill that causes a monster to damage itself or another monster just isn’t going to be significant. These skills do a reasonable job of keeping enemies occupied, but Mind Blast doesn’t last very long, and Attract is overwritten by any curse which might actually help the Necromancer deal damage to those targets. Other crowd control skills are simply more useful.

人群控制的关键经验教训

Key Lessons from Crowd Control

《暗黑破坏神II》中的群体控制技能清晰地展现了角色扮演游戏中动作技能的精髓。尽管所有群体控制技能的设计初衷各不相同——针对不同的角色和场景——但它们的一些共同特性却决定了它们的威力强弱。例如，群体控制技能的形状并不十分重要。只要线性群体控制技能能够影响多个敌人（例如“骨墙”），并且玩家能够精准瞄准，它的效果就能与范围性群体控制技能（例如“心灵之锤”）相媲美。另一方面，群体控制技能的来源对其效用影响巨大。“嚎叫”是一个能让敌人逃离野蛮人的实用技能，但“残酷守护”和“恐惧”几乎可以在屏幕上的任何位置达到同样的效果，为玩家提供了更灵活的选择。最后，更长的持续时间对于群体控制技能来说是一大优势，但同时也是平衡性调整的首要目标。最常见的群体控制效果——来自冰霜法术的“冰冻”——也是所有敌人在高难度下都会获得抗性的技能。地狱难度下的寒冰效果持续时间仅为普通难度的几分之一。不太常见的群体控制效果在高难度下不会减弱，这在角色扮演游戏中是一种相当典型的平衡机制。稀有技能和物品往往比普通技能和物品更好。

Crowd control skills in Diablo II teach a clear and widely applicable lesson about action skills in an RPG. Although all the crowd controls are meant to be different—meant for different characters and contexts—certain characteristics that they share can make them more or less powerful. For example, the shape of a crowd control skill doesn’t matter very much. As long as a linear crowd control can affect more than one enemy (as Bone Wall does), and the player can aim it well, it can be as effective as a radial crowd control (like Psychic Hammer). On the other hand, the source of a crowd control skill affects its utility immensely. Howl is a useful skill that sends enemies running away from the Barbarian, but Grim Ward and Terror can do the same thing at essentially any point on the screen, offering the player the same effect with more versatility. Finally, longer durations are a huge asset to crowd control, but are also the first target of balancing efforts. The most common crowd control effect, chill from cold spells, is also the one to which all enemies gain resistance on higher difficulties. The chill effect in hell difficulty lasts for only a fraction of the length it does on normal. Less common sources of crowd control effects don’t suffer from diminished effect on higher difficulties, which is a pretty typical balance dynamic for an RPG. Rarer skills and items tend to be better than common ones.

用户界面问题

The UI Problem

尽管《暗黑破坏神II》的动作技能设计精妙复杂，但由于界面略显过时，使用这些技能有时会比较困难。不过，我必须先声明，《暗黑破坏神II》在当时确实提供了流畅的游戏体验。其中最重要的部分——技能瞄准敌人——表现相当出色。右键点击施法非常自然，而且操作精准，如同鼠标移动一般。此外，《暗黑破坏神II》中大多数怪物的判定框都比较宽大。

For all the nuance and complexity built into the action abilities in Diablo II, using those abilities is occasionally difficult because of the antiquated UI. I want to say up front that in its own time, Diablo II offered a slick player experience. The part of the UI which matters the most, targeting enemies with skills, works quite well. Right-clicking to target with a spell is natural and has the precision of mouse movement. Moreover, hitboxes in Diablo II are on the generous side for most monsters.

话虽如此，某些地形障碍物有时也会拥有更大的判定框，从而阻挡一些意想不到的攻击。此外，在敌人数量众多的情况下，由于判定框重叠，很难瞄准单个敌人。这或许是游戏有意为之；在敌人数量众多的情况下，击中敌人本来就应该比较困难。无论如何，这款游戏并不像其他游戏那样，玩家首先击中哪个敌人至关重要——至少通常情况下并非如此。

That said, sometimes certain terrain doodads also have these larger hitboxes and can block shots you wouldn’t expect. Moreover, in large crowds, it’s hard to target a single enemy because of the overlapping hitboxes. Some of this is probably intentional; it should be hard to hit enemies in large crowds. In any case, it’s not the kind of game where it matters which enemy the player hits first—at least not often.

《暗黑破坏神II》用户界面真正的问题在于技能切换的繁琐。我们刚刚讨论了移动和控制技能的多种应用场景。对于熟练的玩家来说，在移动技能、主要攻击技能和控制技能之间切换，甚至同时使用两种技能，都是很常见的操作。但玩家应该如何切换呢？最大的限制在于玩家的主手无法离开鼠标。对于那些没有高端游戏鼠标的玩家来说，这意味着另一只手只能使用五根手指。其中四根手指通常用来放置药水。拇指可以用来处理物品掉落或“保持静止”指令（通过一些按键映射）。设计师们发现自己没有一个便捷的技能切换方案。他们最终选择了最直接（但也略显不便）的方案：使用滚轮或功能键。

The real problem with Diablo II’s UI is how difficult it is to switch between skills. We just saw two whole sections about the many action applications of movement and crowd control abilities. It’s not unusual at all for a good player to switch between a movement ability, a primary attack and a crowd control skill, or even two of each, but how should the player switch between them? The big limiting factor is that the player’s primary hand cannot leave the mouse. For people who don’t have a deluxe gaming mouse, that leaves five fingers on the other hand that the player can use. Four of those fingers are dedicated to potions most of the time. The thumb can handle the item drops or the “hold still” command (with some button remapping). The designers found themselves without a convenient solution for switching between a variety of skills. They went with the obvious (but somewhat inconvenient) solution of using scroll wheels or the function keys.

QWERTY键盘的下半部分是标准化的，因此设计师无需额外研究即可进行设计和测试。但标准QWERTY布局和字母以上的部分，在不同的键盘型号和时代之间可能存在显著差异。数字行和功能键（可分配技能）之间的间距在不同型号的键盘上可能有所不同。功能键的排列方式、大小和纹理也可能不同。普通人的手最多只能舒适地够到两个功能键，需要稍微移动整个手臂。对于大多数人来说，手臂（尤其是非惯用手）的肌肉运动远不如手部肌肉运动精准，这在战斗中可能会浪费宝贵的毫秒。此外，由于游戏节奏极快，玩家无法将视线从屏幕上移开。

The lower part of the QWERTY keyboard is standardized, so the designers can design and playtest for it without having to do extra research. Everything above the standard QWERTY layout and letters can vary significantly across different models and eras. The space between the number row and the function keys (which can be assigned to abilities) can vary between different models of keyboards. The alignment of the function keys can vary. The size and texture of the function keys can vary. The average human hand can’t comfortably reach more than two function keys without having to move the entire arm a little bit. The muscle movements of the arm (especially the non-dominant arm) are not nearly as precise for most people as those of the hand, and can cost precious milliseconds while the player is in combat. What’s more, the player cannot look away from the screen because the game is so fast-paced.

《暗黑破坏神II》的键盘操控配置存在不少问题，但这些问题都不至于致命。经过一些练习，玩家们就能掌握这些技巧。玩家要么可以重新设置键盘布局，要么可以学习熟练使用前几个功能键。玩家也可以使用鼠标滚轮切换技能，但这不如其他动作游戏中的类似操作那样精准。由于《暗黑破坏神II》的系统非常有趣，玩家会逐渐适应，但他们本不应该被迫这样做。《暗黑破坏神III》相比前作，为数不多的真正改进之一就是快捷栏的设计。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家只需移动手指即可轻松使用六个技能和一个药水。我对《暗黑破坏神III》中药水消耗速度（以及整体生命值系统）的改动持保留意见，但为了方便技能使用，一些改变是不可避免的。

There are quite a few problems with the configuration of Diablo II’s keyboard controls, but none of them are actually fatal to the game. With some practice, players can either reprogram their keyboard or learn to use the first few function keys reasonably well. The player can also use the scroll wheel on the mouse to cycle through abilities, but that isn’t as precise as analogous controls in other action games. Because Diablo II’s systems are so fun to use, players will adapt, but they shouldn’t have to. One of the few things that Diablo III unequivocally improved over its ancestor was the design of the hotbar. In that game, the player has easy access to six abilities and a potion by only moving their fingers. I’m ambivalent about the change in potion consumption rates (and health systems in general) in Diablo III, but some kind of change had to happen in order to facilitate easier ability use.

我意识到批评《暗黑破坏神II》没有发明当时并不存在的键盘布局有些不公平。动作键盘映射和快捷界面的设计很大程度上受到了21世纪初FPS游戏热潮的影响。这些游戏的开发投入了数百万美元进行测试，每一款都吸取了前作的经验教训。然而，我仍然要指出这个问题，因为它对动作角色扮演游戏的设计史至关重要。或许《暗黑破坏神III》允许玩家混合使用技能的具体改动并不完美，但这些改动的必要性及其原因显而易见。

I realize that it’s somewhat unfair to criticize Diablo II for not inventing keyboard setups that didn’t exist at the time. The design of action keyboard maps and quick UIs were largely driven by the FPS boom of the early 2000s. Millions of dollars of playtesting went into the creation of those games, and each one learned from the errors of the games that came before it. I still point out the problem, however, because it’s important to the history of action RPG design. Perhaps the exact changes which Diablo III used to allow players to mix abilities weren’t perfect, but it should be clear that they were necessary, and why.

回顾《暗黑破坏神II》的动作机制

Looking Back at Action Mechanics in Diablo II

虽然《暗黑破坏神》最初是一款回合制Roguelike游戏，但到了《暗黑破坏神II》时期，设计师们已经对在游戏中融入动作机制的意义进行了深入思考。游戏中用于群体控制和角色移动的特殊技能表明，设计团队并没有简单地将传统角色扮演游戏的理念生搬硬套到动作游戏中，而是进行了精心的调整。每个职业的移动技能不仅手感各异，而且与使用这些技能的角色设计理念也相契合。无论是冰冻敌人、眩晕敌人、击退敌人、驱赶敌人、设置屏障，甚至是让敌人自相残杀，角色们都有多种方式来应对危险的敌人群。这些技能并非只是摆设。如果使用得当，每个职业的技能都实用且与其他职业的技能截然不同。这引出了动作游戏类型对《暗黑破坏神II》影响的另一个重要方面。当一款游戏能够很好地融合多种类型时（我曾在其他地方称之为“复合型游戏”），玩家就可以利用一种类型的机制来解决另一种类型的问题。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，优秀的动作机制绝对可以弥补属性上的不足，尤其是在游戏初期。巧妙运用风筝和群体控制技巧，可以让新手施法者弥补早期伤害和法力值的不足。同时，位移技能可以帮助近战职业锁定敌群中最危险的成员，并在游戏初期就消灭那些真正构成威胁的独特敌人和精英怪。虽然在游戏初期掌握动作机制固然有益，但在后期则至关重要。糟糕的动作机制会让玩家误入险境，即使是精心打造的角色也会因此丧命。设计者本可以简单地将实时系统融入游戏，却忽略了游戏的深度，但他们却花费了大量的时间和精力，确保《暗黑破坏神》的动作机制能够充分展现其魅力。

Although Diablo began its life as a turn-based roguelike, by the time of Diablo II the designers had put a lot of thought into the implications of including action mechanics in their game. Special abilities for crowd control and character movement show that the design team didn’t just import traditional role playing ideas into the action space without thoughtful adaptation. Not only do the movement abilities of each class feel different, but they also match the design philosophies of the characters that use them. Whether it’s chilling enemies, stunning them, knocking them back, scaring them away, putting up walls, or even causing enemies to fight amongst themselves, there are many ways for the characters to deal with dangerous swarms. None of these abilities are merely token efforts, either. If used correctly, each class’s abilities are useful and distinct from what the other classes have. This brings up another important aspect of the influence of the action genre on Diablo II. When a game mixes genres well (what I have elsewhere called a composite game), it is possible for the player to use the mechanics of one genre to solve the problems of the other. Good action mechanics in Diablo II can absolutely make up for statistical shortfalls, especially in the early game. Good use of kiting and crowd control can allow fledgling casters to over-perform their early damage and mana shortages. Movement skills, meanwhile, can help melee classes target the most dangerous members of enemy packs and eliminate the unique and champion enemies who present a real threat, early in the game. Whereas a good command of the action mechanics is nice to have early, it becomes essential in the late game. Bad action mechanics can cost even well-built characters some deaths if the player strays carelessly into situations no character can reasonably survive. Action mechanics could easily have been a place where the designers simply added real time without any depth, but they took the time and care to make sure that the action part of the Diablo formula shines through.

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《暗黑破坏神II》中的各种随机性

The Different Kinds of Randomness in Diablo II

学生们进入游戏设计专业时，往往对游戏设计抱有许多偏见，这些偏见需要纠正。我发现学生中最常见的偏见之一是认为游戏设计中的所有随机性都大同小异。这种想法源于缺乏批判性思考。我经常问学生们关于《超级马里奥世界》中周期性飞过屏幕的小火球的问题。

Students enter game design programs with many prejudices about game design that need to be amended. One of the most common prejudices I have encountered among students is the notion that all randomness in game design is more or less the same. This idea springs from a lack of critical examination. Often, I’ve asked students about these small fireballs that periodically fly through the screen in Super Mario World.

学生们往往说这些火球出现得毫无规律。然后我问：“所以它们可能随时出现，也可能根本不出现？”所有学生很快就明白了。事实并非如此。即使是短暂的观察也能发现，火球的出现频率是固定的。随后，我进一步询问了火球的速度、数量等问题。最终，学生们意识到火球及其随机性确实存在一些规律。事实上，只有火球的位置是可变的。火球的数量、频率、速度和大小都不是随机的。实际上，即使是它们的位置也仅限于屏幕的一半左右。通过一些批判性的分析，年轻的游戏设计师们会了解到，游戏设计中的随机性远比乍一看要复杂得多。这一点在《暗黑破坏神II》中尤为突出。不仅随机性的运用十分微妙复杂，构成游戏的各个系统也内置了多种不同的随机性。本书的这一章将探讨《暗黑破坏神II》系统中内置的各种随机性。

Students tend to say that these fireballs come at random. I then ask, “So they can come at any time or not come at all?” All students quickly figure out that this isn’t the case. Even brief observation reveals that the fireballs come at a regular rate. I then ask more questions about fireball speed, fireball quantity, etc. Eventually, the students figure out that certain things are true of the fireball and the randomness to which it is subject. The truth is that only fireball position is variable. The quantity, frequency, speed and size of the fireballs are not random at all. Indeed, even their position is restricted to about half the screen. With a little bit of critical examination, young designers learn that randomness in game design is actually much more nuanced than a cursory glance might tell them. This statement is especially true of Diablo II. Not only is the use of randomness nuanced and complex, there are also many different kinds of randomness built into the systems that make up the game. This chapter of the book examines the different kinds of randomness built into the systems of Diablo II.

随机性类型简介

Intro to Types of Randomness

《暗黑破坏神II》运用了种类繁多的随机性，因此是研究游戏设计中各种随机性的绝佳范例。事实上，《暗黑破坏神II 》不仅展现了多种随机性，而且还让许多随机系统以复杂的方式相互作用。通过研究《暗黑破坏神II》，我们可以全面了解游戏设计中的随机性。这项研究的第一步自然是识别游戏中存在的所有随机性类型，并解释它们的运作方式。不过，在开始之前，我想先说明一点：我只会给出游戏中各种随​​机性类型的定义。我确信，我即将描述的这些概念在数学或科学领域肯定有特定的定义。但我并不了解这些定义，也不需要了解，因为我的目的并非定义广泛适用的统计学概念。就本书而言，我只想构建一些简单的框架来理解游戏设计中的随机性。许多受过统计学训练的读者可能会认为我对随机性的描述过于简单。此外，我描述的许多内容只是对同一基本概念的不同解读。这些质疑完全正确！但接下来的许多描述对于思考电子游戏设计仍然很有帮助，而且希望它们不会歪曲或掩盖其所代表的更深层次的概念。

Diablo II makes for a great lesson in the various kinds of randomness that exist in game design because it employs so many of them. Indeed, not only does Diablo II exhibit many kinds of randomness, but it also causes many of these random systems to interact with one another in complex ways. By studying Diablo II, we can learn a lot, generally, about randomness in game design. The first step in this study, naturally, is to identify all of the kinds of randomness that exist in the game and explain how they work. One proviso I want to offer before I begin, however, is that I am only going to offer game-specific definitions of the various kinds of randomness. I am certain that there are mathematics-specific or science-specific definitions of the things I am about to describe. I don’t know them and I don’t need to because I’m not really trying to define widely-applicable statistical concepts. For the purposes of this book, I’m only interested in creating some simple frameworks for understanding randomness in game design. Many readers who have statistical training might object to my characterizations of randomness as being too simple. Moreover, many of the things I describe are just different ways of looking at the same basic concept. All of those objections are totally true! But many of the descriptions that follow are still useful for thinking about videogame design, and hopefully do not distort or dissemble about the deeper concepts they represent.

范围内的随机性

Randomness within a Range

《暗黑破坏神II》中最明显、最传统的随机性类型，我称之为“范围随机性”，简称“RR”。大多数人想到随机性时，脑海中浮现的就是范围随机性。例如，如果你让别人想一个随机数，他们很可能会想到1到10之间的整数，或者1到100之间的整数。这是英语使用者普遍认同的假设。一个真正的随机数可以是7到π的平方，甚至是41,286,317.91——或者任何其他数字！然而，和大多数人一样，《暗黑破坏神II》也使用一定范围内的随机性来控制随机数的出现概率。

The most obvious and most traditional type of randomness in Diablo II is what I call randomness within a range, or “RR” for short. Randomness within a range is what most people have in mind when they think about randomness. For example, if you ask someone to think of a random number, they’ll probably think of an integer between one and ten, or maybe one and 100. That’s an assumption English speakers tend to share. A truly random number could be anything from seven to pi squared to 41,286,317.91—or literally anything else! Like most people, however, Diablo uses randomness within a certain range to control the number of possibilities.

《暗黑破坏神II》大量运用了随机伤害（RR）：玩家角色或敌人的几乎每一次攻击造成的伤害都以多种随机伤害的形式存在。这深刻地影响了《暗黑破坏神II》的运作方式，因为玩家对随机性的感知与游戏呈现方式存在差异。作为一款角色扮演游戏，《暗黑破坏神II》节奏极快，战斗强度也极高，玩家和敌人每小时可以轻松发动数千次攻击。因此，玩家对攻击威力的感知取决于该次攻击（或一系列攻击）的平均伤害。当玩家使用新的攻击或武器时，如果平均伤害显著提高，他们会很快注意到，因为他们可以更快地消灭数百个敌人。伤害的大幅提升（或降低）本身并不是问题——问题在于微小的提升以及游戏界面呈现随机伤害的方式。

Diablo II uses RR copiously: the damage done by almost every attack made by a player character or enemy exists in RR format in more than one way. This has a profound effect on the way that Diablo II operates because of the difference between how people perceive randomness and how the game displays it. For an RPG, Diablo II is very fast and very intense, and players and enemies can easily use thousands of attacks per hour. Thus, the player’s perception of the power of an attack depends on the average damage of that attack (or set of attacks). When adopting a new attack or weapon, players will notice if the average damage is significantly higher very quickly as they chew through hundreds of enemies at a faster rate. Large increases (or decreases) in damage are not the problem—the problem lies in marginal increases and the way that the game’s UI displays RR-format damage.

角色界面以RR格式而非平均值格式显示伤害。计算两个数字的平均值并不难，但《暗黑破坏神II》并非那种需要玩家随身携带笔记本或计算器的游戏。有些角色扮演游戏（RPG）确实如此。在第五版《龙与地下城》中，每回合战斗在游戏内耗时6秒，但实际游戏时间可能长达90秒到5分钟，具体取决于玩家人数。在这些回合中，玩家有充足的时间进行一些计算，并决定使用哪种武器或技能。如果《暗黑破坏神II》也采用这种方式，玩家恐怕永远无法走出第一个地牢——敌人数量太多，武器和攻击方式也太多，根本无法通关。

The character screen displays damage in RR format rather than in average format. It’s not hard to calculate the average of two numbers, but Diablo II isn’t the kind of game where players are meant to keep a scratchpad or calculator handy. Some RPGs are like that. In 5th Edition D&D, each round of combat takes six in-game seconds, but probably takes 90 seconds to five minutes to actually play out in real time, depending on how many players there are. There’s plenty of time during those rounds to do a little math and sort out which weapon or skill to use. If Diablo II were played that way, players would never make it out of the first dungeon—there are just too many enemies to fight and too many weapons and attacks to choose from.

对于那些不会为了计算基本数值而放慢游戏速度的玩家来说，缺乏平均值究竟会造成多大的问题？假设一位《暗黑破坏神II》玩家面前摆着两把魔法剑。这两把剑的基础属性完全相同，伤害值在16到28之间（平均22点），但它们的魔法词缀不同。第一把剑的魔法词缀使其最大伤害+10，第二把剑的魔法词缀使其最小伤害+10。哪一把更好？经过足够长时间的测试，两把剑并没有明显的区别，尽管增加最小伤害的词缀出现频率要低得多。更高的最小伤害值在战术上的唯一优势在于……伤害值主要体现在狩猎特定类型的怪物时。如果玩家知道目标怪物的平均生命值，并且能够使角色武器或攻击的最低伤害值高于该值，那么最低伤害就显得更有价值。过度击杀怪物并不会提升伤害。也就是说，从长远来看，最大伤害和最小伤害之间并没有区别对待的理由。武器词缀中提升最大和最小伤害的部分并不多见；大多数高端装备提供的都是基于百分比的伤害提升。这个原则仍然很重要，因为当玩家在不同的技能攻击之间进行选择时，他们获得的信息（以及基于这些信息做出的决策）在大多数情况下对他们来说用处不大。

How big of a problem does the lack of an average figure present to players who aren’t slowing down the game to do the basic math when presented with alternatives? Let’s say a Diablo II player is presented with two magic swords to pick from. The swords have the exact same base stats, 16–28 damage (22 damage average), but they have different magical modifiers. The first sword has a magical modifier that gives it +10 to maximum damage. The second sword has a magical modifier that gives it +10 to minimum damage. Which one is better? Over a long enough sample, neither one is better, although minimum damage increases are significantly rarer as affixes. The only tactical advantage for higher minimum damage is when hunting a very specific sort of monster. If the player knows the average HP of an enemy he or she is hunting, and can get the minimum damage of the character’s weapon or attack above it, minimum damage is a little more valuable. Overkilling enemies doesn’t help. That said, there’s no long-term reason why there should be separate benefits to maximum and minimum damage at all. Weapon affixes that augment minimum and maximum damage aren’t a huge part of the game; most of the high-end equipment offers a percentage-based increase. The principle is still important, because when players select between different skill-based attacks, they get information (and decisions to make based on it) that is just not that useful to them most of the time.

RR随机性和遭遇动态

RR Randomness and Encounter Dynamics

随机性在一定范围内的模糊性并非毫无价值，即便在最模糊的时候也是如此。怪物的生命值也存在于一个随机值范围内，而这个范围会产生一些有趣的效果。堕落者在噩梦难度下的平均生命值为 209 [ 33 ] ，但它的生命值也可能在 131 到 288 之间波动。由于同一群堕落者中的每个成员的生命值都可能不同，当玩家使用群体攻击时，这些随机变化会产生一些有趣的后果。下图展示了一群堕落者在使用类似“冰川尖刺”的群体攻击前后的生命值变化。

The slightly murky nature of randomness within a range is not without its merits, however, even when it’s at its murkiest. Monster HP also exists within a random range of values, and this range creates some interesting action effects. The Fallen has an average of 209 HP on nightmare difficulty,[33] but it can have anywhere from 131 to 288 HP as well. Because each member of a pack can have different HP, these random variations can have some interesting results when a player uses a multi-target attack. Below I have visualized a group of Fallen before and after a multi-target attack like Glacial Spike.

这里发生的情况是，当女巫施放法术时，怪物们开始向她逼近。一些低生命值的怪物会死亡，但它们的生命值是随机的，这意味着剩余的高生命值怪物群会呈现出不规则的排列。这种排列方式会给玩家带来新的战术选择，例如如何移动才能施放接下来的几个法术。这是角色扮演游戏中随机性如何产生动作游戏后果的绝佳例子之一。玩家并不会意识到这一点（因为随机伤害和随机敌人生命值并没有以数值形式显示），但它仍然成功地迫使玩家在实时战斗中做出战术选择。

What’s happened here is that, as the sorceress casts her spells, the monsters begin to close in on her. Some of the monsters with lower HP die, but their HP is random, meaning that the remaining pack of higher-HP monsters takes on an irregular shape. This shape then gives the player a tactical new choice of where to run in order to launch the next few spells. This is one of the better examples of how randomness in RPG systems can lead to action-game consequences. The player isn’t aware of this (because the random damage and random enemy HP are not displayed numerically), but it nevertheless succeeds at forcing the player to make tactical choices in real time.

但这一台最高可达11

But this One Goes Up to 11

秉承了roguelike游戏的传统，但这对于主流玩家来说往往相当令人沮丧的是，《暗黑破坏神II》中最顶级的武器和盔甲的词缀都存在RR（降低抗性）的变化。获取。例如，游戏中最好的单手剑（碧蓝之怒）的伤害加成词缀可以达到230%到270%不等。这会让那些花费数百小时寻找该物品各种版本，却都想要完美版本的顶级玩家感到头疼。然而，任何计算过这些词缀变化的人都会发现，降低伤害（RR）的词缀只会使碧蓝之怒的DPS改变大约30点伤害，也就是不到2%。并非所有物品都是如此。例如，另一把名为“祖父”的剑，其降低伤害（RR）词缀的变化幅度高达100%，因此，根据掉落的属性，它的DPS变化幅度约为23%。[ 34 ]然而，大多数武器的伤害加成变化幅度都小于50%，即使是50%的差异也十分罕见，只有精英级的独特双手武器才会出现这种情况。

True to roguelike orthodoxy, but often quite frustrating to mainstream audiences, Diablo II’s best weapons and armor all exhibit RR variation in the affixes they acquire. The best one-handed sword in the game (Azurewrath), for example, can have an increased damage affix of anywhere from 230% to 270%. This can give fits to master-level players who spend hundreds of hours trying to find any version of the item, but who all want the perfect version. Anyone doing the math on the variation will notice, however, that the RR variation can only change Azurewrath’s DPS by about 30 damage, or less than two percent. Not all items are like this. Another sword called The Grandfather, for example, experiences a 100 percentage-point RR variation, and accordingly it can see its DPS change by about 23% based on the stats it drops with.[34] The damage modifiers on most weapons vary less than 50 percentage points, however, and even that level is uncommon except on elite, unique two-handed weapons.

更大的问题在于较小的词缀范围。例如，独特的头盔“女武神之翼”会提供亚马逊技能+ 1-2的词缀。在高等级时，玩家很容易弥补30点DPS的损失，但技能加成词缀在5级和85级时同样重要。（一些顶级近战流派完全不需要这类词缀，但大多数职业都能从中受益匪浅。）后期法杖“昂达尔的智慧”一直是游戏中施法者最有价值的武器之一。它提供45%的施法速度提升、40-50点能量和5%的经验加成；这是一件非常优秀的物品，但它也提供所有技能+ 2-4的加成。 [ 35 ]加成范围的上限远高于下限，如果玩家获得的是+2而不是+3或+4，他们肯定会感到沮丧。我们将在本书第三章中详细探讨这些词缀如何影响物品的整体价值，但现在只需知道，关键属性上的微小降低率（RR）变化远比DPS上的大幅度变化重要得多。但这并不意味着玩家会随意丢弃属性不完美的独特物品。独特物品非常稀有，玩家不能轻易丢弃高级物品。此外，独特物品往往在多个方面都表现出色，其中一些方面对玩家来说肯定很有用。我们将在第三章中更深入地探讨独特物品的这一特性。

The bigger problem is in the smaller ranges. Items like the unique helm Valkyrie Wing offer affixes like +1–2 to amazon skills. At the highest levels, it’s easy for the player to make up for the loss of 30 DPS, but +skill affixes are as valuable at level five as they are at level 85. (Some top-end melee builds do not need such affixes at all, but most classes benefit from them greatly.) Ondal’s Wisdom, a late game staff, is always one of the most valuable caster weapons in the game. It offers 45% faster cast rate, 40–50 energy, and 5% bonus experience; it’s a tremendous item, but it also offers +2–4 to all skills.[35] The high end of that range is worth a lot more than the low end, and players will rightly be frustrated if they get a two rather than a three or a four. We’ll see in Chapter 3 of this book how those affixes change the overall value of an item, but it suffices to say for now that small RR variation in very important stats is far more important than large-range variation in DPS. This doesn’t mean that players will throw away unique items that don’t have perfect stats. Unique items are rare enough that players can’t throw high-level items away crassly. Unique items also tend to be powerful in several different ways, and some of those ways are bound to be useful to the player. We’ll see a lot more about this aspect of unique items in Chapter 3.

RR 和地图生成

RR and Map Generation

尽管《暗黑破坏神II》在地图生成中也运用了随机生成（RR）机制，但其实现方式远不如其他方面那样显而易见。地图的程序化生成是《暗黑破坏神II》详尽文档中一个相对薄弱的环节。（这可能是因为《暗黑破坏神II》的高级玩家会使用地图作弊工具，这些工具可以显示整个地图，从而避免了对地图生成机制的全面理解。）此外，我采访过的《暗黑破坏神》开发者也无法完全回忆起他们方法的每一个步骤。不过，他们确实向我提供了相当多的关于总体流程的信息。这个流程在“卡牌”随机性部分还会再次提及，但我在这里也提一下，因为它也包含一些随机生成（RR）机制。总体流程如下：

Although its implementation is not nearly as obvious as elsewhere, Diablo II also employs RR variation in map construction. The procedural generation of maps is one place where the otherwise thorough documentation of Diablo II falls short. (This is probably because the most advanced players of Diablo II employ map-hacks, which reveal the entire map and thereby obviate the need for a comprehensive understanding of map generation.) Moreover, the Diablo creators I interviewed were not able to recall every step of their methods perfectly. They did provide me with quite a bit of info on the general process, however. This process will come up again in the “deck of cards” randomness section, but I mention it here because there is a bit of RR variation in it, too. The overall process is as follows:

1.地图的整体大小已确定

1.The overall size of the map is determined

2.地图的方向已确定

2.The orientation of the map is determined

3.创建的区域被包裹在一堵围墙内，这堵围墙有其自身的生成算法。

3.The zone created is wrapped in a containing wall, which has its own generation algorithm

4.该区域的主要特征位于

4.The major feature of the zone is placed

5.添加房间和/或树木或房屋等小物件来填充空间（扑克牌的随机性，我们稍后会进行探讨）

5.Rooms and/or doodad objects like trees or houses are added to fill the space (deck of cards randomness, which we’ll examine later)

6.敌人数量根据密度限制（以及牌组随机性）增加[ 36-38 ]

6.Enemies are added based on density limits (also deck of cards randomness)[36–38]

目前尚不清楚这些步骤是如何受 RR 控制的，但它们确实受其控制。例如，地图大小始终在预设范围内计算。地图的 X 轴和 Y 轴都有最小值和最大值，每个区域的总面积也有上限。每个区域的具体细节并不十分重要，但有些区域的设计就是比其他区域更大。第一幕和第二幕拥有大型的矩形户外区域，其间穿插着狭窄且更像走廊的地牢。相比之下，第三幕则拥有漫长蜿蜒的户外区域，这些区域往往沿着一条曲折得不可思议的河流延伸。地图长度并非预先设定，而是由 RR 的指导原则决定。

It’s not immediately clear how some of these steps are governed by RR, but they are. Map size, for example, is always calculated within a pre-set range. The X and Y axes of a map have minimums and maximums, and the total area of each zone also has a cap. The specifics of each zone aren’t terribly relevant, but some zones are meant to be bigger than others. Acts one and two have large, rectangular outdoor zones punctuated by dungeons that are narrow and more corridor-like. Act three, by contrast, has long, snaking outdoor zones which tend to follow the path of an impossibly meandering river. There’s not a predetermined length, but rather an RR guideline that determines the map length.

在地图生成过程的第四步，算法会放置区域的主要地标。通常，这个地标是地牢的入口，例如石原中的石冢，或是第五幕地图中通往恶魔领域的传送门。有时，它也可能仅仅是一个任务目标，例如黑暗森林中的伊尼弗斯之树。无论如何，设计者制定了一些规则，以防止关键地图地标与其他地标发生碰撞，从而阻碍玩家进入。

In the fourth step of the map generation process, the algorithm places a zone’s main feature. Usually this feature is the entrance to a dungeon, like the Cairn Stones in Stony Field, or a portal into a demonic realm in the Act five maps. Sometimes the object is simply a quest objective too, like the Tree of Inifus in the Dark Wood. Regardless, the designers made some guidelines to prevent key map objects from colliding with other objects that would prevent access.

大多数情况下，这个对象不能放置在区域边缘旁边。为了实现这一点，设计人员使用了一个类似这样的范围：

In most cases, this object cannot be placed next to the edge of the zone. To accomplish this, the designers employed a range that looks something like this:

物体定位

Object Location

X坐标= (X轴+ 20码) 到 (X轴最大值− 20码)

XCoordinate = (X-Axis + 20 yards) to (X-AxisMaximum − 20 yards)

Y坐标= (Y轴+ 20码) 到 (Y轴最大值− 20码)

YCoordinate = (Y-Axis + 20 yards) to (Y-AxisMaximum − 20 yards)

（没有人掌握确切的公式，但这个例子反映了设计师们仍然铭记的理念。）因此，该区域最重要的物体是通过算法将其与可能阻挡或干扰其运行的大型障碍物隔离开来。

(Nobody had the exact formulas, but this example reflects the philosophy which the designers did remember.) Thus, the most important object in the zone is algorithmically separated from being next to a large barrier object which might block or glitch it.

从范围内的随机性中汲取的关键教训

Key Lessons from Randomness within a Range

•关于RR变化，最重要的是要知道，即使玩家不知道你的平均球路是多少，他们也能感知到你球路的平均值。只需告诉玩家平均值是多少即可。

•The most important thing to know about RR variation is that players will perceive the average of your range, even if they don’t know what that average is. Just tell players what the average is

•对于诸如DPS或技能修正等重要属性而言，较小的数值范围（1-2）比较大的数值范围（1-100）波动性更大——但物品数值范围过大也可能导致部分玩家因属性大幅降低而感到不满。

•Small ranges (1–2) are more volatile than large ranges (1–100) when you’re dealing with important stats like DPS or skill modifiers—but large ranges on items can leave some players bitter over significant reductions in power

• RR 变异是一种无需设置固定位置即可在地图中设置对象边界的好方法

•RR variation is a great way to set bounds on objects in the map without setting a fixed location

馅饼切片随机性

Slice-of-Pie Randomness

扇形随机性（SOP）是指存在多个随机选项，每次掷骰子都可能出现其中任何一个选项的随机性。与其举一个日常生活中的例子，不如直接深入探讨它在《暗黑破坏神》中的应用。这种随机性主导了战利品生成的大部分步骤，包括第一步。当敌人死亡时，游戏会查看该怪物的等级，然后从该等级或更低等级的物品列表中选择掉落物品。这意味着怪物可能会掉落35级物品、6级物品，或者什么也不掉——但掉落的概率并不相等。[ 39 ]

Slice-of-pie (SOP) randomness is the kind of randomness that occurs when there are several random options, any of which could be the outcome of a given roll. Rather than give an example from everyday life, I’m going to dive right into the Diablo-specific applications of it. This type of randomness governs most of the steps in loot generation, including the first step. When an enemy dies, the game looks at that monster’s level and then pulls from a list of items of that level or lower. This means that the monster could drop a level 35 item, a level six item, or nothing at all—but not with equal probability.[39]

饼图的每一块大小都不同。那么，为什么要用饼图来可视化呢？这种随机性有三个特性，只有将整个过程视为选择饼图的一部分，才能更好地理解这些特性。第一个特性是，当游戏选择饼图的一部分时，不会出现空结果。必须选择其中一块（即使其中一块是“不掉落”），这几乎适用于游戏中所有敌人的死亡。这种随机性的第二个特性是，饼图的块数越多，……的概率就越低。玩家会获得其中任何一个。例如，如果我们增加游戏中掉落战利品时的选项，那么玩家获得其中任何一个的概率必然会降低。[ 40 ]

Each slice of the pie is a different size. Why use a pie-shaped visualization, though? There are three properties of this kind of randomness that are best understood when the entire process is viewed as selecting one piece of a pie. The first property is that, when the game selects a piece of the pie, there’s no null result. One of the slices must be taken (even though one of them is “no drop”), and this is true of almost every enemy death in the game. The second property of this kind of randomness is that the more slices of pie there are, the lower the odds that the player will get any one of them. For example, if we add more options for the game to select from when loot is dropping, the chances of selecting any one of them must go down.[40]

这在游戏后期会成为一个重要的动态，因为高等级敌人不仅会掉落高级装备，还会掉落大部分低于自身等级的装备。换句话说，《暗黑破坏神II》的设计者们一直在把资源点数分割成越来越小的块，而不是简单地改变每一块的内容。

This becomes an important dynamic in the late game, because higher-level enemies don’t just drop high-level loot, they can also drop most of the loot below their level, too. Or, in other words, the Diablo II designers are always slicing the pie into smaller and smaller pieces, rather than simply changing the contents of each piece.

第三个使SOP随机性比喻有用的原则是，当一块饼变大或变小时，其他饼也必须随之改变。为什么了解这一点很重要？在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家可以改变饼的大小。 《暗黑破坏神II》中最著名的机制之一就是“魔法寻宝”系统，玩家可以通过该系统提高获得更好物品的几率。玩家不仅可以增加“稀有”和“独特”物品的饼的大小，而且这样做实际上还会大幅减少“普通”物品（通常没什么用）的饼的大小。我们将详细介绍这部分系统，但同样重要的是要知道，这并非玩家影响饼的大小或数量的唯一途径。事实上，玩家还可以改变物品的掉落数量，尽管这个过程需要其他玩家的参与，并且存在一些缺点。

The third principle that makes the SOP randomness metaphor useful is that, when a slice of the pie grows or shrinks, other pieces of pie have to change as well. Why is this important to know? In Diablo II, the player has the power to change the sizes of the slices of pie. One of the most famous mechanics in Diablo II is its magic-find system through which the player can improve his or her odds of getting better items. Not only can the player make the size of the “rare” and “unique” pieces of pie, but by doing so they actually make the “normal” item slices (which are often useless) much smaller. We’ll cover that portion of the system in detail, but it’s also important to know that it’s not the only place where the player can influence the size or number of slices. Indeed, the player can also change how many items drop, too, although the process requires other players and has some drawbacks.

改变切片的大小和数量

Changing the Size and Number of Slices

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，物品从尸体中生成时，首先会进行一次检查，以确定是否会掉落任何物品。这是了解《暗黑破坏神II》物品生成机制（以及SOP随机性的实现）的一个比较容易入手的地方。当敌人死亡时，游戏会进行一次判定，看看是否会掉落物品。不掉落物品的概率取决于区域范围内的变量，而不是怪物本身的属性。当玩家独自一人时，不掉落物品的概率约为62%。随着更多玩家进入游戏和/或当前玩家战斗的区域，不掉落物品的概率会降低（表2.1）。

The first thing that happens when items are being generated from corpses in Diablo II is a check that determines if any items drop at all. This is one of the easier places to start looking at how Diablo II generates items (and implements SOP randomness). When an enemy dies, the game rolls to see if an item drops. The no-drop slice of the pie is based on an area-wide variable rather than something in the monster itself. When the player is alone, the standard rate of “no drops” is about 62%. As more players enter the game and/or area where the current player is fighting, the no-drop rate decreases (Table 2.1).

游戏界面中没有任何说明，玩家数量越多，获得的战利品就越多，尽管这其实很符合直觉。玩家越多，战利品自然也越多，这样每个人都能有所收获！正如玩家会注意到周围玩家越多，经验值增长速度越快一样，他们也会通过屏幕上的显示来感知战利品数量的增加。《暗黑破坏神II》以其大量无人问津的“垃圾”战利品而臭名昭著——低等级的普通物品或​​破损的装备。尽管这些装备几乎毫无用处，但它们却能很好地反映出当前本地的掉落率。

Nothing within the game’s UI explains that a greater number of players will see greater amounts of loot, although it makes intuitive sense. There needs to be more loot when there are more players so that everyone can have some! Just as players will notice that having more players around results in greater amounts of EXP filling up their level bar, players will also notice the greater amount of loot through what they see on the screen. Diablo II is infamous for all of its “junk” loot that nobody wants—low-level common items or broken versions of gear. Even though this gear is almost always useless, it works well as an indicator of the current local drop rate.

无掉落物品的计算只是第一步的一部分，还有几次SOP（随机物品掉落）判定最终决定了游戏选择的物品。SOP随机性的一个重要特性是，当一个扇形区域缩小时，其他区域必须扩大。那么，当无掉落物品区域缩小时，什么在扩大呢？第一步中的其他选择是大型元表——包含其他表的表。Fendriradramelk 在他关于魔法寻宝机制的优秀指南中分析了其中一些元表，我已将其重新整理并可视化如下。当玩家在地狱难度下击杀骷髅时，骷髅可能会掉落以下物品（表2.2）。

The no-drop calculation is only a part of the first step, and there are several SOP rolls that lead the game to its choice of item. One of the important properties of SOP randomness is that, as one slice of the pie shrinks, the others have to grow. What is growing when the no-drop slice shrinks? The other selections in the first step are large meta-tables—tables that contain other tables. In his excellent guide on magic find mechanics, Fendriradramelk examines some of these meta-tables, which I have reorganized and visualized below. When a player kills a skeleton on hell difficulty, it can drop the following (Table 2.2).

元表格中的描述与内容基本吻合。“第一幕（困难）垃圾”掉落的是垃圾，“第一幕（困难）好东西”则会掉落相当不错的物品，具体掉落物品取决于掉落怪物的等级。“第一幕（困难）装备A”才是玩家真正想要的；它包含玩家提升等级所需的实用装备。他们的角色。遗憾的是，玩家无法控制游戏随机选择哪个扇形区域。角色越多，掉落战利品的几率就越大，但最新最好的战利品并不会以1:1的比例替换掉那些没有掉落的扇形区域。随着怪物等级的提升，新的扇形区域会以新物品表的形式添加到扇形区域中，但这实际上会给那些正在寻找特定装备的玩家带来不少问题。正如SOP随机性的第二个特性所述，每个新的扇形区域都会使其他扇形区域变小。此外，最新物品总是被添加到最小的扇形区域中。这是有意为之；高端物品在高难度下会变得极其强大，设计者必须保持游戏平衡，并为玩家提供努力的目标。SOP随机性方法中还存在其他一些看似无意的瓶颈。这些问题往往源于不同宝物类别中物品分布的不均衡。下面是一个饼图，仅显示了宝物等级 (TC) 30 的套装和独特物品，这些物品是从 40 级左右的敌人身上掉落的。[ 43 ]

The meta-table descriptions are fairly accurate to what they contain. “Act 1 (H) Junk” drops junk and “Act 1 (H) Good” will drop fairly good items, relative to the level of the monster that drops them. “Act 1 (H) Equip A” is the one that players are really looking for, however; it has the useful gear that players need to improve their character. Unfortunately, the player has no influence over which one of these slices the game randomly chooses. More characters means a greater chance of loot dropping, but the newest and best loot doesn’t replace the no-drop slice of pie at a 1:1 ratio. As the monsters increase in level, new slices are added to the pie in the form of new item tables, but this actually causes quite a few problems for players who are hunting for specific pieces of gear. As the second property of SOP randomness states, every new slice makes every other slice smaller. Moreover, the newest items are always added as the smallest slices. This is intentional; high-end items become extremely powerful on the later difficulties, and the designers have to maintain the game balance and give the players something to work towards. There are other bottlenecks in the SOP randomness method that appear to be unintentional. These problems tend to arise from the unequal distribution of items in different treasure classes. Below is a pie graph that displays just the set and unique items of treasure class (TC) 30, which drops from enemies around level 40.[43]

当物品选择过程进行到这一步时，玩家有相当大的几率获得自己想要的物品，尤其是在多次尝试之后。[ 44 ]

Once the item selection process reaches this step, there’s a reasonable chance that a player will get the item they want, especially after multiple runs.[44]

看看TC 51。这个宝藏类别的宝物数量众多，这意味着即使玩家运气好选中了TC 51，获得心仪物品的概率也会大幅降低，因为宝藏种类繁多。这虽然不是最常见的问题，但确实会影响玩家找到特定物品的几率，而这可能并非设计者的本意。设计者显然想要尽可能减少精英装备的掉落，而且他们也确实做到了。至于他们是否刻意降低了TC 51中特定物品的掉落几率，则值得怀疑，或许只是个疏忽。

Look at TC 51, here. The abundance of treasure in this treasure class means that even if the player manages to get a roll that selects TC 51, the likelihood of getting the actual item they want is significantly lower because there are so many slices of pie. This isn’t the most common problem, but it does affect the player’s chances of finding certain items in a way that probably wasn’t intentional. The designers definitely wanted to minimize the drops of elite gear and did so successfully. Whether or not they wanted to minimize the chances of any one item in TC 51 is doubtful, and probably an oversight.

经济危机

Economy Crunch

在最高等级，掉落物品种类过多的问题尤为突出。随着游戏中掉落物品种类不断增加，每件装备的掉落概率都会急剧下降。对于一些仍然具有高等级实用性的中低等级装备（其中一些我们会在第三章中看到），玩家可以通过攻击低等级怪物来减少掉落种类。而对于精英装备，玩家别无选择，只能攻击掉落种类最多的怪物，希望精英装备的掉落种类能够被选中。为了让玩家更直观地了解这些物品的掉落率比低等级物品低多少，我制作了一个可视化图表，展示了每个等级的掉落概率。[ 45 ]

This problem of too many slices is magnified at the highest levels. As the game adds more and more slices to the pie of TCs that can drop, the chances of getting any individual piece of gear drop precipitously. For mid- and lower-level gear that still has high-level utility (some of which we’ll see in Chapter 3), the player can eliminate some of these slices by targeting lower-level monsters. For elite gear, the player has no other option than to target monsters with the greatest number of slices in the hope that the elite slice will be chosen. To get a sense of how much less these items drop than items in earlier tiers, I have created a visualization of the drop rates of each successive TC.[45]

上面显示的是掉落TC物品的概率，该物品最有可能从特定怪物身上掉落。例如，格里斯沃尔德是最有可能掉落TC 6的怪物，在普通难度下，他死亡时，每次拾取都有大约25%的概率掉落该物品。巴尔是最有可能掉落TC 87的怪物，但他死亡时只有0.1%的概率掉落该物品。（请注意，我已乘以怪物的标准掉落槽位数量，这会影响最终的掉落概率。普通怪物通常只有一到两个掉落槽位，但首领怪物如果掉落槽位没有空槽，则往往会掉落四个或更多物品。巴尔并非……）他最有可能掉落 TC 87，因为他的掉落槽位很多，所以掉落的可能性也最大。）

What you’re seeing above is the rate at which a TC drops from the monster most likely to drop it. For example, Griswold is the monster most likely to drop TC six, and he drops an item from it roughly 25% of the time per pick when he dies on normal difficulty. Baal is the monster most likely to drop TC 87, but he only drops it 0.1% of the times he dies. (Note that I have multiplied by the standard number of drops that a monster has, which affects the final odds. Normal monsters have one or two drop slots, but boss monsters tend to drop four or more items if the drop slots don’t have a no-drop result. Baal isn’t the most likely to drop TC 87 per drop slot, but he is the most likely to drop it because he has so many slots.)

这些掉落率意味着，玩家平均每击杀巴尔一千次才能获得一件TC 87装备，而且这还是假设每次巴尔副本都满员，这样不掉落的概率可以忽略不计——否则掉落几率会更低！（请注意，这些是平均掉落几率。在我模拟的巴尔副本中，我经常遇到连续两三千次击杀都没有TC 87装备掉落的情况——很多玩家都经历过这种情况。）如果每次副本都必须满员才能达到这样的掉落几率，那么就会有八名玩家争夺同一份战利品。众所周知， 《暗黑破坏神III》通过为每个玩家单独生成战利品解决了这个问题，但我们研究的是设计师实际制作的游戏，而不是他们理想中的游戏。《暗黑破坏神II》中的顶级装备非常稀有，玩家们为了争夺它们展开了激烈的竞争。大卫·布雷维克表示，他认为很多物品的掉落率都太低了，尤其是最高等级的TC（可能是指某种装备或物品）和最稀有的符文。他表示，他其实很欣赏《暗黑破坏神III》中一些限时或特定条件下提升掉落率的活动。[ 46 ]尽管如此，《暗黑破坏神II》的难度并非高到无法游玩。本书第三部分将探讨即使是中等强度的装备仍然非常有用，尤其是在套装效果下。不过在此之前，我们还需要了解一些随机因素。

These drop rates mean that a player will only see, on average, one TC 87 item per one thousand times they kill Baal, and that’s assuming that every single one of those Baal runs is completely full so that the no-drop rate is negligible—or else the odds are even worse! (Note that these are average odds. In my simulations of Baal runs, I routinely ran into stretches where a TC 87 item did not drop for two or three thousand kills in a row—something plenty of players have experienced.) If every game has to be full in order to achieve these odds, then there are going to be eight players competing for the same loot. Diablo III famously solved this problem by generating loot for each player separately, but we’re studying the game that the designers made, not the one they wish they had made. The best items in Diablo II are rare, and players compete fiendishly for them. For his part, David Brevik said that he thought many items were a little too rare, especially the highest TCs and the rarest runes. He said he actually appreciated some of the events that Diablo III employed to increase drop rates for a limited time and/or under certain conditions.[46] In spite of all this, it’s not as though Diablo II is unplayable because of this extreme difficulty. In section three of this book, we’re going to see how even moderately powerful gear is still very useful, especially when part of a set, but we’ve still got a few forms of randomness to examine before we get there.

魔法寻宝和SOP随机性

Magic Find and SOP Randomness

《暗黑破坏神II》生成物品的最后一步是确定物品的品质——普通、魔法、稀有、套装或独特。这实际上是众多“饼图”中的最后一块，但也是玩家能够掌控最多的一块。普通物品占据了最大的份额，但每个敌人都有一定几率掉落魔法物品。当玩家装备带有“获得魔法物品几率提升”词条的装备时，就能提高这些怪物的掉落率。关于这种提升，有两点需要注意，因为它们与游戏机制的随机性有关。首先，所有提升都是以牺牲“普通物品”的掉落率为代价的。这一点显而易见，因为除此之外没有其他掉落的物品了。[ 47 , 48 ]

The last step that Diablo II performs when generating items is to determine the quality of the item—whether the item is normal, magic, rare, set, or unique. This is essentially the last pie in a long line of pies, but it’s also the one the player has the most control over. The largest slice of the pie is normal items, but every enemy has an inherent chance of dropping a magic item. When the player equips gear with “% Better Chance of Getting Magic Item,” they augment the drop rate from those monsters. There are two important things to know about this augmentation, as they relate to SOP randomness. First, all of the gains made are at the expense of the “normal items” slice. This is pretty obvious, because there’s nothing else to take from.[47,48]

棘手之处在于，最好的碎片——套装和独特物品——增长速度远慢于魔法碎片和稀有碎片。更重要的是，它们获得的收益会递减。随着魔法物品掉落率的提升，玩家从中获益匪浅。一方面，这限制了玩家对游戏过程的控制；他们永远无法达到一定程度，确保每次都能获得独特或套装物品。另一方面，收益递减机制让游戏更具趣味性，并且与其他属性的收益递减机制完全一致。攻击速度、攻击等级、施法速度和移动速度也都存在显著的收益递减。这种机制的目的是促使玩家更加平衡地分配角色属性。本书第三章将探讨玩家对击杀怪物的速度比对击杀奖励的掌控力更强。魔法物品掉落率固然重要，玩家应该积极提升，但同时，他们也需要确保自己的角色是一位合格的战士。

The tricky thing is that the best slices—set and unique items—grow much more slowly than the magic and rare slices. What’s more, they receive diminishing benefits from magic find bonuses as the amount grows. In one way, this limits the amount of control the player has over the process; they can’t ever really reach a point where unique or set items will always drop. In another way, the diminishing returns make the game more interesting in a way totally consistent with all the other stats. Attack speed, attack rating, casting speed, and move speed all incur significant diminishing returns as well. The purpose of that dynamic is to make the player take a more balanced approach to their character’s stats. One of the things we’ll see in Chapter 3 of this book is that players have more control over the rate at which they kill monsters than they do the amount of reward they get for doing so. Magic find helps a lot, and players should seek it out, but at the same time, they need to make sure their character is a worthy warrior.

关于“随机切片”的关键教训

Key Lessons about Slice-of-Pie Randomness

•要谨慎处理不断扩大的掉落表。如果不断增加掉落区域的份额，玩家获得最小份额的概率就会越来越低。

•Be careful about ever-expanding drop tables. If you keep adding slices to the pie, it will be less and less likely that the player will ever see the smallest slices.

• 《暗黑破坏神 II》允许玩家直接和间接地增加副本规模（分别通过魔法物品掉落词缀和队伍规模），而这一设定也取得了巨大的成功。

•Diablo II gives the player the ability to directly and indirectly augment the size of slices (through magic find affixes and party sizes, respectively), and this was famously successful.

•然而，游戏并没有赋予玩家增减切片的权限。这或许是导致某些物品过于稀有的原因。

•The game doesn’t give the player the power to add or subtract slices, however. This may have been the problem that led to some items being too rare.

一副扑克牌的随机性

Deck-of-Cards Randomness

接下来要讨论的两种随机性有很多重叠之处，但也存在一些关键区别。我在这里要讨论的是我称之为“牌组随机性”（DOC随机性）的随机性。几乎所有能读懂英语的人都接触过52张牌的牌组，即使你没接触过，几乎所有纸牌游戏也都遵循这个原理。52张牌牌组（实际上大多数纸牌游戏的牌组都是如此）最重要的特性是它包含重复牌。例如，有四张J，四张7等等。因此，玩家拿到任何特定牌型的概率为7.6%，但重复牌的数量有限，所以当方块J出现时，其他玩家从牌组中拿到J的概率会略微下降。职业牌手必须能够心算出这些概率才能持续获胜。然而，DOC随机性的第二个重要特性也在这里发挥作用。根据游戏的不同，牌组会以不同的时间间隔进行洗牌（随机化）。在二十一点游戏中，通常会使用多副牌，职业牌手需要知道何时使用新的（随机的）牌组，或者何时所有牌组重新随机化才能获胜。DOC随机性的第三个重要特征是，其中的牌在某些方面相互关联。例如，在单人纸牌游戏中，玩家只能按照数字顺序构建牌列。

The next two types of randomness overlap a lot, but there are some critical differences. The one I’m going to discuss here is what I call “deck of cards” (DOC) randomness. Almost everyone who can read English has encountered the 52-card deck, but even if you haven’t, almost all card games operate by this principle. The most important quality of the 52-card deck—and really a deck in most card games—is that it contains repeats. There are four jacks, four sevens, etc. Thus, players have a 7.6% chance of getting any given type of card, but the repeats are limited, so when the jack of diamonds enters play, the chances that any other player will get a jack from the deck drops slightly. Professional card players have to be able to do this math in their heads in order to win consistently. There’s a second important quality to DOC randomness that comes in at this point, however. Depending on the game that’s being played, the deck is shuffled (randomized) at different intervals. In blackjack, there are often several decks being used, and professional card players need to know when a new (randomized) deck is being used, or when all the decks are re-randomized in order to win. The third important characteristic of DOC randomness is that the cards in it are interdependent in certain ways. In solitaire, for example, the player can only build columns of cards based on numerical order.

游戏中对 DOC 随机性依赖最大的部分是地图生成。前面我们已经了解了 RR 方法如何放置地图上的重要物体，但大部分工作实际上是通过一副卡片完成的。这些卡片就是关卡设计师 Stefan Scandizzo 所说的“预设”。本质上，计算机从一副预先制作好的关卡模块卡片中抽取卡片，并将它们组合起来。我们将从 DOC 的特性角度来分析这个过程。需要注意的是，以下几乎所有信息都来自我对 Scandizzo 的采访，尽管我使用的关于随机性的术语是本文原创的。[ 49 ]

The part of the game that depends most on DOC randomness is map generation. Just above, we looked at how important objects on the map are placed by RR methods, but most of the work is done out of a deck of cards. The cards themselves are what level designer Stefan Scandizzo called “presets.” Essentially, the computer draws from a deck of pre-made level chunks and fits them together. We’ll examine this process through the lens of the DOC characteristics. Note that almost all the information below comes from my interview with Scandizzo, although the terms I use for randomness are original to this document.[49]

1.牌组中存在重复元素：电脑从预先生成的牌组中抽取卡牌，并将它们放置在地图上。虽然牌组中有很多重复元素（连接走廊是最常见的重复类型），但电脑在洗牌前只能抽取一定次数的同一张卡牌。这避免了地牢设计沦为简单的复制粘贴。然而，这个过程看似简单，实则十分复杂，因为牌组中的卡牌数量庞大，而且种类繁多。

1.Decks have repeats: The computer draws cards from a deck of pre-made chunks and places them on the map. Although there are many repeats in the deck (connecting hallways being the most common type of repeat), the computer can only draw the same card so many times before a shuffle. This prevents dungeons from feeling like a total copy/paste job. This process is deceptively complex, however, because there are a huge number of cards in the deck, and they vary greatly.

2.牌组会重新随机化（洗牌）：地图某些区域的牌组较小（例如下图所示的区域边界墙），因此重复出现的牌较多。室外地图的边界尤其容易出现这种情况，并且通常比地图其他区域更频繁地进行“洗牌”。也就是说，地图越大，玩家遇到重复牌的频率就越高。关卡的预设牌组比大多数人想象的要大得多，但它们最终是有限的，用完后会循环使用。然而，这可能是游戏中 DOC 随机性中最不重要的部分，因为大多数牌组都相当大。

2.The deck gets re-randomized (shuffled): Certain parts of the map have much smaller decks (like zone border walls, pictured below) and therefore have more repeats. The borders of outdoor maps are particularly prone to this, and often experience “shuffling” more than other parts of the map. That said, the bigger a map is, the more often the player will see repeats. The level’s preset decks are much larger than most people imagine, but they are ultimately limited and will recycle if they run out. This is probably the least important part of DOC randomness in the game, however, since most of the decks are quite large.

3.牌组中的牌以特定的方式相互作用：无论预设牌的末端是空心边缘还是像门一样的开口，它都只能与另一张可以接收它的预设牌连接。如果抽出的牌的边缘与之前放置的牌的边缘匹配，则将它们连接起来。否则，将它们放回牌组中。（这种重新插入本质上是一种“轻洗洗牌”。）

3.The cards in the deck interact in specific ways: Whether the preset card ends in an empty edge or an aperture like a doorway, it can only connect with another preset that can receive it. If the edges of the card drawn match the edges of the card previously laid down, it connects them. If not, it inserts them back into the deck. (This reinsertion is essentially a “soft shuffle.”)

检查卡片

Examining the Cards

牌组中的卡片长什么样？它们千差万别。有些预设区域只有几码宽，边缘可以与其他预设卡片连接——这些通常是死胡同。这类卡片数量众多，牌组中有些卡片还会重复出现。另一些预设区域则面积巨大，拥有多个分支，每个地牢的牌组中只有一张此类预设卡片。

What does a card from the deck look like? It varies greatly. Some presets are only a few yards across and have one edge that can attach to another preset card—these are often dead ends. There are a lot of these cards, and the deck contains duplicates of some of them. Others are gigantic spaces with several branches, of which there is only one copy of this type of preset in the deck per dungeon.

在右侧的截图中，重要的是小地图。整个圈出的区域就是一个单独的预设。[ 50 ]如果地牢每次都应该给人耳目一新的感觉，为什么预设会如此庞大？这其中有几个因素，但最主要的是每个卡组中都有几十到几百个大小不一的预设。虽然我和我采访过的任何人都没有办法统计，但从制作它们所花费的时间就能看出有些卡组有多大。Stefan Scandizzo 是三位关卡设计师之一，他花了近三年的全职时间制作预设。[ 51 ]虽然算法是提高效率的强大工具，但它们的效用取决于它们所依赖的资源。

In the right hand screenshot, it’s the mini-map that’s important. The entire circled section is a single preset.[50] How can presets be so large if the dungeons are supposed to feel new each time? There are a few things affecting this, but the most important one is that there are dozens to hundreds of presets of varying sizes in each deck. Although neither I nor any of the people I interviewed had the means to count, you can understand how big some of the decks were by the time spent making them. Stefan Scandizzo was one of three level designers, and he spent nearly three years of full time labor making presets.[51] Although algorithms are a great productivity tool, they’re only as useful as the assets they draw upon.

正因如此，《暗黑破坏神II》地下城的结构和氛围实际上更多地取决于预设卡组的卡牌类型和数量，而非程序生成算法的任何特性。地下城的独特风味源于预设卡组的形状。例如，像蛆虫巢穴那样狭窄蜿蜒的预设卡组，会让人感到幽闭恐惧，难以辨认方向。（斯坎迪佐曾表示，他在这个地下城上花费了大量时间，并且对它在老玩家中口碑不佳感到惊讶。[ 52 ]）憎恨之牢中巨大的房间与狭窄的通道形成鲜明对比，会让玩家感觉自己突然落入陷阱。像地下通道这样的洞穴中，许多类似的岔路会让玩家感觉自己一直在无尽的迷宫中徘徊，却找不到出口。每个地下城和户外区域的算法都略有不同；斯坎迪佐和布雷维克都证实了这一点。然而，正是每个区域的各个组成部分，才造就了游戏的魅力。

Because of the above, the structure and feel of Diablo II dungeons actually depends more on the nature and number of cards in the preset deck than any quirk of the procedural algorithm. Dungeons gain their flavor from the shape of the presets. Narrow, winding presets like those in the Maggot Lair make it feel claustrophobic and difficult to navigate. (Scandizzo actually said he spent a ton of time on this dungeon, and was surprised to learn of its poor reputation among veteran players.[52]) The contrast between huge rooms and narrow apertures in the Durance of Hate can make it feel like the player is suddenly dropped into a trap. The many similar forks in caves like the Underground Passage can make it feel like the player has been wandering endlessly with no sign of an exit. The algorithms for each dungeon and outdoor zone are slightly different; both Scandizzo and Brevik confirmed this. Nevertheless, it’s the pieces of each zone that make the magic happen.

虽然敌人和宝物的放置并非严格意义上使用DOC随机性，但它们仍然与预设结构相关联，且实现起来相当简单。每个预设结构中都预先设置了若干个“接收器”，敌人和宝物可以放置在这些接收器上。

Although enemy and treasure placement do not technically use DOC randomness, they are still connected to the structure of presets and fairly simple in execution. On each preset, there are several pre-programmed “receptors” upon which enemies and treasure can be placed.

地图生成完成后，游戏会将敌人分批放置在这些接收器上。每个预设场景都有一个敌人密度上限。虽然我采访过的开发者都记不清具体的计算公式，但密度计算似乎并非完全取决于敌人的数量。某些类型的敌人有几种不同大小的“群体”可供选择。[ 53 ]这些群体的权重会根据其中怪物的数量和类型而有所不同。游戏会在地图上随机放置一波（大小不一的）群体。然后，对于每个未超过最大权重的预设场景，会不断添加群体，直到达到预设的人口密度上限。[ 54-56 ]宝箱的放置过程也类似，它们会根据能够容纳它们的接收器的密度限制进行分配。如果由电脑随机选择，这些群体和宝箱可能会（而且经常）重复出现，因此它们并不符合DOC的随机性准则。

Once the map has been fully generated, the game places enemies on these receptors in waves. Each preset has a maximum density of enemies. Although none of the devs I interviewed remembered the formula exactly, it appears that the density calculation isn’t entirely dependent on the raw number of enemies. Some types of enemies have several sizes of “pack” to pick from.[53] Those packs have varying weights based on the number and type of monsters in them. The game places a wave of random packs (of various sizes) on the map. Then, for every preset that isn’t over its maximum weight, more packs are added until the predefined population is reached.[54–56] The same process then repeats for treasure chests, which are distributed according to density limits on the receptors that can hold them. These packs and treasure chests can be (and frequently are) repeated over and over again if the computer chooses them randomly, so they don’t follow the DOC randomness guidelines.

并非所有预设地图都包含相同数量的接收器，而且并非所有接收器都相同。老玩家对地图生成的少数了解之一是，地图上有很多宝箱和特定地点会稳定出现特殊宝箱或怪物。换句话说，地图预设也包含宝箱预设。下层库拉斯特小篝火周围的宝箱就是一个很好的例子，也是物品猎人的热门目标。由此可见，程序生成在技术和艺术层面都有其局限性。如果游戏过于随机，老玩家就无法体会到精通游戏所带来的成就感。如果游戏过于依赖预设内容，就很容易被优化，最终沦为毫无惊喜的数学题。随机性和熟悉感之间的平衡正是《暗黑破坏神II》的精髓所在。

Not every preset has an equal number of receptors, and not all receptors are equal. One of the few things about map generation that veteran players did know was that there are many chests and locations where a special chest or monster would reliably appear. In other words, there are map presets which also come with chest presets. The chests around the small bonfire in Lower Kurast are a good example, and are a favorite target of master item hunters. The lesson to be extracted from this is that procedural generation has its limits, both in technological and artistic terms. If the game is too random, long-time players won’t experience as much of a payoff for mastering the game. If the game relies too much on preconstructed material, then it is too easily optimized and just becomes a math problem with no surprises. The tension between randomness and familiarity is what makes Diablo II the game it is.

纸牌随机性的关键教训

Key Lessons in Deck of Cards Randomness

DOC随机性最重要的部分在于牌组中卡牌的数量和种类。如果没有几十张甚至几百张卡牌，地牢很快就会变得千篇一律，毫无新意。

•The most important part of DOC randomness is the number and variety of cards in the deck. Without dozens or hundreds of cards, dungeons will get a copy/paste feel very quickly.

•就像纸牌游戏或扑克牌中的牌有匹配的数字和花色来安排游戏顺序一样，地图生成牌组中的牌也有匹配的边缘和开口来构建合理的建筑。

•Just as the cards in solitaire or poker have matching numbers and suits for ordering the gameplay, so do the cards in the map generation deck have matching edges and apertures for making sensible architecture.

•虽然卡片本身具有一层随机性，但卡片上的“热点”还具有另一层随机性。

•Although the cards themselves are one layer of randomness, there’s another layer of randomness in the “hot spots” on the cards.

•卡牌是从牌堆中随机抽取的，但有时卡牌具有固定的功能，例如特殊的宝箱，经验丰富的玩家可以去寻找。

•The cards are randomly placed from the deck, but sometimes the cards have fixed features, like special treasure chests, which experienced players can seek out.

集合随机性

Set Randomness

《暗黑破坏神II》中最后一种随机性我称之为集合随机性。集合随机性与DOC随机性有很多重叠之处。例如，随着玩家从牌堆（或背包、掉落列表）中抽取更多物品，获得正确物品的概率也会发生变化。实际上，从数学角度来看，集合随机性和DOC随机性可以说是一回事，但就游戏设计而言，我认为从不同的角度来看待它们更有帮助。集合随机性处理的是需要较长时间才能构建的集合。虽然扑克牌游戏中的玩家试图组成顺子之类的牌组，但几分钟后他们就结束了这局游戏，而且他们手中牌组的价值完全取决于其他玩家手中的牌组。此外，在DOC随机性中，所有牌被打出的概率均等。而在集合随机性中，牌组中某些牌的出现频率高于其他牌。桌面游戏拼字游戏（Scrabble）能更好地说明集合随机性。在拼字游戏中，玩家随机抽取字母来尝试组成单词，但这些字母出现的频率并不相同。总的来说，这种随机性具有四个基本特征，这同样适用于《暗黑破坏神II》。虽然其中一些特征与《暗黑破坏神II：起源》的随机性有所重叠，但我还是用另一个例子来阐述这些特征，因为从另一个角度理解这个概念很有帮助。

The last kind of randomness at work in Diablo II is what I call set randomness. There’s a lot of overlap between set randomness and DOC randomness. For example, the odds of getting the right item change as the player draws more items from the deck (or bag, or loot table). Indeed, you could say from a mathematical perspective that set randomness and DOC randomness are the same thing, but for the purpose of game design I think it’s helpful to look at them through different lenses. Set randomness deals with sets that are built over longer periods of time. Although the players in a round of poker are trying to complete a set like a straight, they’re done with the hand after a few minutes, and the value of their sets is totally dependent on the other sets in play. Moreover, In DOC randomness, all cards are equally likely to be played. In set randomness, some pieces of a set are more common than others. A better illustration of set randomness comes from the tabletop game Scrabble. In Scrabble, players draw random letters to try to complete words, but the letters aren’t all equally common. Overall, this type of randomness has four essential characteristics, as it applies to Diablo II. Although some of these characteristics overlap with DOC randomness, I repeat them with a different example, because it’s helpful to understand the concept from another perspective.

1.玩家随机选择物品，但当这些物品组成套装时，它们的价值会更高。例如，在拼字游戏中，“Z”是一个很适合随机选择的字母，因为它值10分，但玩家只有用它拼出像“zoo”（动物园）或“quiz”（测验）这样的英文单词才能获得这些分数。《暗黑破坏神II 》在这方面稍微宽松一些；随机掉落的符文和套装物品本身就很有价值。也就是说，它们作为套装的一部分时价值更高。（这条规则与《暗黑破坏神：起源》的随机性有重叠之处。）

1.The player selects pieces randomly, but the pieces are much more valuable when they form sets. For example, “Z” is a great letter to pick randomly in Scrabble because it’s worth 10 points, but the player only gets those points if they can form an English word like “zoo” or “quiz.” Diablo II is a little more lenient; runes and set items that drop randomly can be valuable by themselves. That said, they are much, much more valuable as part of a set. (This rule overlaps with DOC randomness.)

2.碎片可以属于多个套装。就像字母“T”和“Y”可以组成“try”、“toy”或“stay”这些单词一样，《暗黑破坏神II》中的碎片也可以属于多个套装。属于多个套装。符文显然可以属于多个不同的符文之语。例如，“Ber”符文就属于符文之语“谜团”和“野兽”。标有“绿色”标记的套装物品也属于多个套装。根据《暗黑破坏神》的规则，西贡全套钢铁套装中的所有物品都属于同一个套装。

2.Pieces can be part of more than one set. Just as the letters “T” and “Y” can be part of the words “try,” “toy” or “stay,” so too can pieces in Diablo II be part of more than one set. Runes can obviously be part of several different runewords. “Ber” is part of the runewords “Enigma” and “Beast,” for example. Denoted or “green” set items are also part of multiple sets. By the rules of Diablo, all the items in the Sigon’s Complete Steel set are part of one set.

部分套装奖励

Partial Set Bonus

每次命中偷取生命值+ 10%（2件装备）

+10% Life Stolen Per Hit (2 Items)

+100防御力（3 件物品）

+100 Defense (3 Items)

完整套装奖励

Complete Set Bonus

每次攻击额外偷取 10% 生命值

+10% Life Stolen Per Hit

+100防御

+100 Defense

+20法力值

+20 To Mana

火焰抗性+ 12%

Fire Resist +12%

+24最大火焰伤害

+24 To Max Fire Damage

攻击者受到12点伤害

Attacker Takes Damage of 12

损失减少了7

Damage Reduced By 7

当套装中的所有物品都装备上时，玩家会获得相当多的加成；而当只装备部分物品时，玩家只能获得部分加成。这些部分加成（分为几个不同等级）各自构成一个独立的套装，嵌套在更大的“命名”套装——西贡全套钢铁套装之中。（这同样会受到DOC随机性的干扰；扑克牌局也是如此。）

When all of the items in the set are equipped, the player gains quite a few bonuses, but when just a few items are equipped, the player is able to gain partial bonuses. These partial bonuses (there are several different levels of them) are each a set nested within the larger “named” set of Sigon’s Complete Steel. (This, too, can overlap with DOC randomness; hands of poker also work this way.)

3.套装中的物品并非都同样常见。这正是套装随机性与DOC随机性的重要区别所在。如果玩家在拼字游戏中随机抽到字母Q，那么等待字母U是明智之举，因为U共有四个（还有两个空白方块，同样可以作为字母）。另一方面，如果玩家已经抽到了字母U，却还去等待字母Q，那就太不明智了，因为游戏中只有一个字母Q。类似地，在《暗黑破坏神II》中，如果玩家获得了塔拉夏的赫拉迪姆纹章护符，就相当于获得了该套装中的字母Q，因此应该留意其他部件。该套装中的腰带——塔拉夏的裹布——则相对常见，不会影响玩家的刷取策略。这一点在《暗黑破坏神II》中尤为重要，因为游戏的物品栏空间有限。由于物品栏和仓库空间有限，玩家必须谨慎选择拾取的物品。 （即使是拥有大量骡子来存放装备的玩家，仍然需要经历管理所有骡子的繁琐过程。）随着经验的积累，玩家会开始注意到哪些物品会告诉他们应该收集套装中的其他物品。

3.Not all parts of a set are equally common. This is where set randomness diverges from DOC randomness in an important way. If a player randomly draws the Q in Scrabble, waiting for a U tile is a prudent move, because there are four U tiles (and two blanks, which serve just as well). On the other hand, a player with the U tile would be crazy to wait for the Q, since there’s only one Q tile in the game. Similarly, players in Diablo II who happen to get the amulet Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest have gotten the “Q” of that set, and would be wise to keep an eye out for the rest of it. The belt from that same set, Tal-Rasha’s Wrappings, is relatively common and shouldn’t change the player’s farming behavior. This is important in Diablo II because inventory space is limited. With a limited amount of inventory and stash space to put objects, players have to be somewhat selective about what they’re picking up. (Even players who have numerous mules to hold their gear still have to go through the annoying process of managing them all.) As they gain experience, players will begin to notice which items tell them that they should collect the rest of a set.

4.随着玩家收集到一套字母，他们获得剩余字母的概率会降低。假设一位拼字游戏玩家想用抽到的前七个字母拼出单词“judge”。假设他是第一个抽牌的玩家，那么他抽到“judge”这五个字母中任意一个的概率是25%。（袋子里有100个字母，包括重复的字母，其中25个字母在“judge”这个词里。）假设玩家抽到的前四个字母中除了字母G以外的所有字母，那么抽到字母G的概率只有3.125%。（袋子里还剩下96个字母，其中有三个是字母G。）这是因为抽到字母G的概率总是低于抽到字母J、U、D或E的概率之和。

4.As players collect pieces of a set, the chance that they will get the remaining pieces drops. Let’s say a Scrabble player wants to spell the word “judge” when they draw their first seven letters. Assuming they are the first person to draw letters, they have a 25% chance of drawing any of the five letters in the word “judge.” (There are 100 letters in the bag, including duplicates, and 25 of them are in the word judge.) Let’s say the player gets everything but the G in the first four letters he draws. The chance of drawing the G would only be 3.125%. (There are 96 letters left in the bag and three of them are Gs.) This is just because the chances of drawing a G are always going to be lower than the combined chances of drawing a J, U, D, or E.

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，当玩家收集到套装中的第一件物品后，收集到该套装其他缺失部件的几率相对较高，尤其是在套装部件数量较多的情况下。单个怪物掉落套装部件的几率虽然很小，但玩家击杀成千上万个怪物后，总能遇到一些套装部件。如果套装中各个部件的掉落几率大致相等，那么获得心仪套装部件的几率就相对较高。然而，一旦玩家已经拥有大量套装部件，重复掉落的几率可能与新掉落的几率相当。尽管玩家的目标是集齐套装，但套装部件的掉落顺序并非固定不变。

When a player in Diablo II collects his or her first item in a set, the odds of collecting another missing piece of that set are relatively high, especially if the set has a large number of pieces. The odds of any single monster dropping a set item are small, but across thousands of monster kills, the player will see some set items. If the chances of any piece of the set are roughly equal, the chance of a new item dropping in a desired set is relatively high, but once the player already has a bunch of items, it’s likely that he or she will see duplicate drops as often as new drops. Although the player seeks to complete sets, the system that distributes set items provides them in no particular order.

关于集合随机性的关键教训

Key Lessons about Set Randomness

•集合随机性与 DOC 随机性类似，但有一些重要的区别。

•Set randomness is similar to DOC randomness, but with a few important differences.

•集合的力量大于其组成部分之和。

•Sets are more powerful than the sum of their components.

•并非所有套装部件都同样常见，因此套装中的某些部件可以指示玩家是否应该开始收集。

•Not all parts of a set are equally common, so there are certain pieces of a set that indicate the whether player should start collecting or not.

•无论套装物品多么常见，玩家找到套装的最后一件物品都会比找到第一件物品更难。

•No matter how common set items are, the player will have a harder time finding the last piece of the set than the first piece of it.

反思《暗黑破坏神II》中的随机性

Reflecting on Randomness in Diablo II

随机性是一种工具包，而非单一工具。实现随机性的方法有很多种，《暗黑破坏神II》就运用了其中不少。理解《暗黑破坏神》式随机性的关键在于，它借鉴了许多不同类型游戏中早已存在的理念。从纸牌游戏到拼字游戏，塑造随机性的方法多种多样，玩家既可以制定策略、影响和控制随机性，又能偶尔从中获得惊喜。《暗黑破坏神II》的一大乐趣就在于随机获得一件强力物品。《暗黑破坏神II》最大的挫败感之一就是无法集齐一套顶级装备。正是这两点让玩家乐此不疲，随着他们对游戏及其系统的了解加深，他们也更加欣赏这款游戏。我认为，即使游戏向你揭示其本质，你依然会为之兴奋，这正是游戏深度的标志之一。近20年后，《暗黑破坏神II》似乎通过物品、地图和怪物的随机性完美地诠释了游戏的深度，否则我们也不会至今仍在谈论它，也不会如此频繁地重返其中。

Randomness is a toolkit, not a tool. There are many different ways to implement randomness, and Diablo II uses quite a few of them. The key to understanding Diablo-style randomness is to understand that it draws upon ideas which were already at play in many different kinds of games. From solitaire to Scrabble, there are many different ways of shaping randomness so that human players can strategize, influence, and control it, while still being occasionally surprised by it. One of the great delights of Diablo II is finding a powerful item at random. One of the great frustrations of Diablo II is being unable to complete a set of great items. Both of these things keep people playing, and as they understand more about the game and its systems, they appreciate the game more. I think that state of being thrilled by a game even as it lays its own bones bare to you is one of the hallmarks of depth. Nearly 20 years later, it seems like Diablo II nailed depth through randomness in items, maps, and monsters, or we wouldn’t still be talking about it or returning to it quite so often.

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3

Schaefer 变分和加速流

Schaefer Variation and Acceleration Flow

本书本章将探讨《暗黑破坏神II》独特的架构设计，我称之为“谢弗变异”。本章将分析谢弗变异的定义、实现方式以及它对玩家《暗黑破坏神II》游戏体验的影响。简而言之，谢弗变异是一种在程序生成角色扮演游戏（RPG）中重现主流动作游戏基本架构的方法。为了更好地解释这一点，本章将整合前两章的内容，阐述其实现原理。此外，本章还将介绍一种与之直接相关的现象，我称之为“加速心流”。加速心流并非一种设计机制，而是玩家在RPG游戏中可能体验到的一种心理状态。它是一种专注的快感状态，源于玩家角色升级速度的变化。我们将深入探讨这种现象，以及谢弗变异如何自然地促成加速心流的产生。

This chapter of the book deals with the idiosyncratic design structure of Diablo II, an idea I call Schaefer variation. In this chapter, we will examine what Schaefer variation is, how it is implemented, and what effect this has on the player’s experience of Diablo II. The shortest explanation of Schaefer variation is that it is a way of recreating the fundamental design structure of mainstream action games in a procedural RPG. To explain this, this chapter of the book will synthesize information from the first two chapters to explain how this effect is achieved. In addition, this chapter of the book will also cover a directly related phenomenon I call acceleration flow. Acceleration flow is not a design dynamic, but rather a psychological experience that a player can have in RPGs. Acceleration flow is a state of focused euphoria that results from changes in the rate at which a player-character gains levels. We’ll examine that phenomenon and how Schaefer variation contributes to it naturally.

挣脱角色扮演游戏的束缚

Breaking Out of the RPG Straightjacket

《暗黑破坏神II》中的许多设计机制似乎都是为了保持游戏难度始终不变。乍一看，这似乎与“变化”这一概念本身就存在矛盾。例如，《暗黑破坏神II》中最明显的总体机制之一就是其等级确定的区域。也就是说，特定区域内的怪物都有一个基础等级，除非它们以精英怪或独特怪的形式出现，否则它们的等级基本保持不变。即便如此，怪物等级的变化也微乎其微。例如，噩梦难度下塔莫高地的怪物等级为39级，精英怪为41级，独特怪为42级。该区域内所有怪物的伤害、生命值、防御力、攻击等级和经验值都取决于怪物的等级和类型（以及怪物可能拥有的程序生成词缀）。总的来说，《暗黑破坏神II》中的所有区域等级都是线性增长的。[ 57 ]

Many of the design dynamics in Diablo II seem to be constructed to keep the difficulty the same at all times. At first glance, this seems like it is incompatible with a phenomenon that has the word “variation” right in it. For example, one of the most obvious over-arching dynamics in Diablo II is its level-deterministic zones. That is, monsters in a given zone have a base level, and they don’t really vary from that level unless they spawn as champion or unique monsters. Even then, the variation in monster level is minimal. The monsters in the Tamoe Highland on Nightmare difficulty, for example, are level 39. Champions in that zone are level 41. Uniques in that zone are level 42. All of the damage, HP, defense, attack rating, and EXP values in that zone are a product of monster level and monster type (and procedural affixes, if the monster has any). For the most part, all of the zones in Diablo II increase in level in a linear way.[57]

图中大部分陡峭的上升都出现在各难度等级的第五幕，但在游戏的其他部分则没有任何明显的峰值或谷值。R平方值确实表明，在游戏的强制区域内，怪物等级与游戏难度呈线性关系。

Most of the steeper rises in the graph are in act five of each difficulty setting, but there aren’t any major peaks or valleys at all across the rest of the game. The r-squared value does illustrate how linear monster level is across the mandatory zones of the game.

《暗黑破坏神》关卡难度线性变化是否意味着游戏难度几乎总是完全相同？并非如此，原因有以下几点。首先，这是一款动作角色扮演游戏，敌人等级并不能完全反映游戏难度。敌人还拥有动作游戏特有的属性，这些属性会影响击杀难度。例如，奔跑速度、弹道速度和角色大小这三个维度，并非总是与怪物等级相匹配。

Does the linear shape of Diablo’s level determinism mean that the difficulty of the game is almost always exactly the same? No, and there are several reasons why. The first is that the game is an action RPG, so enemy level doesn’t always tell you everything. Enemies also have action-game attributes that can make them harder or easier to kill. Run speed, projectile speed, and sprite size are three dimensions that are not always balanced in accordance with monster level.

像跳跃者和魔物这样的敌人，相对于正常速度的角色来说，移动速度都非常快。它们造成的伤害虽然比正常区域低，但玩家却更难躲避或逃脱。粗心的玩家很容易被成群的这类怪物包围，难以摆脱，尤其是在角色体力耗尽的情况下。第三幕的丛林区域情况尤为糟糕，大量的魔物会快速发射数十枚飞行速度极快的弹丸，这些弹丸在地图背景色的映衬下往往难以辨认。击中这些体型小、移动速度快的敌人同样令人沮丧；有时甚至连点击它们的图标都十分困难。拥有高防御属性或强大输出的玩家可以在一定程度上克服这些问题。但这仍然意味着，这些区域的难度远超其关卡等级所显示的水平。

Enemies like the Leaper and Fetish all move quickly, relative to a normal-speed character. They do less-than-normal damage for the areas in which they appear, but the player has a harder time avoiding or escaping them. Incautious players can easily find themselves swarmed by huge packs of these monsters and unable to lose them, especially when their character’s stamina runs out. Nowhere is this worse than in the jungles of Act 3, in which large numbers of Fetishes can rapidly fire dozens of projectiles which move fast and are often hard to see against the background color of the map. Trying to hit these small, fast-moving enemies can be equally frustrating; even clicking their sprites can sometimes be difficult. Players with great defense stats or tremendous damage output can overcome these problems to some degree. But that still means that these zones are harder than their level might suggest.

地图生成是另一个可能出现难度突然飙升的情况，而怪物属性却没有发生任何异常变化的领域。正如我们在第二章的地图生成部分所看到的，程序生成的每张地图卡牌都有多个可能的敌人落点。虽然每个落点以及整张地图的敌人数量都有上限，但算法的任何部分都无法保证敌人的均匀分布。

Map generation is another area in which it’s possible for procedural generation to yield a sudden spike in difficulty without any unusual changes to monster stats. As we saw in the map generation section in Chapter 2, every map card in the procedural deck has several possible landing spots for procedurally generated enemies. Although there are maximum population limits for each landing spot and for the map as a whole, no part of the algorithm guarantees an even distribution of enemies.

如果敌人分布算法恰好将敌人放置在地图上的一个聚集区域，那么对于某些类型的角色来说，游戏难度可能会突然增加。如果这些敌人中有一个或多个是拥有特殊词缀的独特怪物，这种效果会更加显著。一大群敌人，再加上一个独特怪物及其精英小队，会大幅提升它们的伤害输出和危险程度。如果一个或多个独特怪物拥有光环词缀，直接强化附近所有怪物，情况就更加如此。在这种情况下，原本难度适中的一群怪物会变得异常凶猛，即使是顶尖玩家也常常需要重新加载游戏才能通关。

If the enemy distribution algorithm happens to place enemies in a cluster on the map, the game can suddenly become more difficult for certain types of characters. This effect is magnified if one or more of those enemies is a unique monster with special affixes. A large crowd backed by a unique monster and his elite pack greatly increases the damage and danger they can output. This is especially true if one or more of the unique monsters has an aura affix, directly augmenting all of the nearby monsters. Under these conditions, a moderately difficult cluster of packs can become quite vicious, and often even the best players will reload their game to clear it.

当然，游戏中也存在一些通过程序生成的机制来降低难度的情况。有时，会遇到一些克制玩家当前角色配置的敌人，或者敌人的某些行为可以被玩家利用。有时，掉落的物品或获得的新技能也能大幅提升玩家的实力。了解《暗黑破坏神II》的关键在于，尽管关卡难度是固定的，但游戏的难度仍然存在许多起伏。实力提升带来的心理冲击可能比难度的骤降更为显著，但我们将在下一节中探讨这两者。

Of course, there are also places where the game gets easier through procedural means as well. Sometimes, there is an enemy who is weak to the player’s build, or one that has a behavior that the player can exploit. Sometimes greater ease comes from an item drop or a new ability that gives the player a surge in power. The important thing to know about Diablo II is that there are many peaks and valleys in the difficulty of the game, despite the constant level determinism. The surges in power are a little more important, psychologically, than the surges in difficulty, but we’ll take a look at both in this next section.

老板、行为和有机加速

Bosses, Behavior, and the Organic Acceleration

章节首领是检验游戏难度起伏的绝佳场所，也是了解游戏机制如何塑造这些起伏的关键所在。从某种意义上说，章节首领的难度明显高于游戏的其他内容。章节首领的等级通常比它们所在的区域高出约10级，并且拥有大量的额外生命值和许多致命的攻击。为了平衡这种难度，首领也会提供更丰厚的奖励。章节首领的经验值通常是同等级普通敌人的40倍左右[ 58 ] ，而且每次击杀首领掉落的最高（和平均）物品数量也更多。此外，首领掉落魔法物品、稀有物品、套装物品和独特物品的概率也高于普通怪物。虽然从某种意义上说，首领难度更高，但玩家并不总是会像认为丛林里满是发射飞镖的图腾怪那样，认为首领战会提升游戏的整体难度。

Act bosses are a great place to examine both peaks and valleys in difficulty, and how both of those things are created by the game’s mechanics. By one definition, act bosses are clearly harder than the rest of the content of the game. Act bosses are usually about 10 levels higher than the zones they inhabit, in addition to having tons of extra HP and many deadly attacks. To offset this, bosses also yield significantly greater rewards. Not only is act boss EXP usually about 40 times higher than normal enemy EXP at the same level,[58] but bosses also have a higher number of maximum (and average) drops per kill. Moreover, bosses are more likely to drop magical, rare, set, and unique items than common monsters. Although bosses are more difficult in one sense of the word, players don’t always think of boss fights as making the overall game “harder” in the same way a jungle full of Fetishes shooting darts makes the game harder.

这引出了一个关于角色扮演游戏（RPG）难度感知的重要观点。RPG玩家并不一定认为游戏的难度仅仅取决于击杀单个怪物的难易程度。相反，玩家认为RPG的难度更多地与游戏过程中获得的奖励比例有关，我之后会称之为“奖励/回报比”（R/T比）。《暗黑破坏神II》的章节首领显然比普通怪物难得多，但它们提供的奖励却非常丰厚，因此R/T比并没有下降。（这个比值的分子可以是任何类型的奖励，例如经验值、装备、符文、宝石或金币，或者它们的任意组合。）事实上，当玩家掌握了首领的行动模式或找到了能够快速击败特定首领的build时，这个比值甚至可能会上升。

This brings up an important point about the perception of difficulty in RPGs. Players of RPGs do not necessarily think of the difficulty of the game as being only a product of how hard it is to kill individual monsters. Rather, players perceive the difficulty of an RPG to have to do more with the ratio of rewards over time, what I’ll call the R/T ratio from now on. Diablo II’s act bosses are obviously much tougher than regular monsters, but they provide such a large amount of reward that the R/T ratio doesn’t decrease. (The numerator in this ratio can be any kind of reward, like EXP, gear, runes, gems or gold, or any combination of those things.) Indeed, the ratio might actually increase when a player figures out how to handle a boss’s behavior patterns or finds a build that allows them to quickly dispose of a particular boss.

上文描述的情况我称之为“有机加速”。任何时候，当玩家能够将角色扮演游戏中的特定部分（例如某个地牢或特定敌人）隔离出来，并利用某种策略来提高响应/时间比率时，他们就处于加速状态。这种有机加速完全取决于玩家的行为和策略。几乎所有电子角色扮演游戏（RPG）都存在这种机制。几乎所有RPG设计师都希望玩家能找到提升游戏水平的方法。因此，当玩家学会如何利用Boss的弱点或掌握一项新技能时，他们实际上是在做设计师希望他们做的事情，这就是我称这种基于行为的加速机制为“有机加速”的原因。这种加速机制大致如下：

The situation described in the paragraph above is what I call an organic acceleration. Any time a player can isolate a specific part of an RPG (like a certain dungeon or specific enemy) and exploit a strategy to raise the R/T ratio, they are in an acceleration. The organic acceleration depends entirely on behavior and exists in almost all digital RPGs. Almost all RPG designers want their players to find ways to be better at the game. Thus, when a player learns how to exploit the weakness of a boss or masters the use of a new ability, they’re doing something the designer intended for them to do, which is why I call behavior-based accelerations organic. An acceleration of this kind looks something like this:

图中数字 1 所标记的斜率急剧增加，即所谓的加速阶段。玩家新设计（或发现）的策略实际上并没有提高 R/T 比率中的奖励。他面对的敌人依然是那些敌人，奖励也依然是那些敌人。相反，玩家的策略是通过利用游戏设计的某些特性来缩短时间分母。（稍后，我们将看到《暗黑破坏神 II》是如何让玩家提高奖励分子的。）

The acceleration is the sharp increase in slope marked by the number one on the graph. The player’s newly devised (or discovered) strategy doesn’t actually increase the reward in the R/T ratio. He’s fighting the same enemies, and they offer the same rewards. Instead, the player’s strategy drives down the time denominator by exploiting some feature of the game design. (Later on, we’ll see how Diablo II allows players to drive up the reward numerator as well.)

上图还包含另一个重要信息：在一次自然加速之后，紧接着会出现一个减速阶段。几乎所有自然加速都会伴随减速，因为它们的主要奖励是经验值。（您可以在上图中看到标有数字 2 的减速阶段。）当玩家利用自然加速快速升级时，实际上会降低接下来几个区域或地下城的奖励价值。每当玩家以高于所需等级的等级进入新的地下城时，经验奖励都会显得相对较少。在《暗黑破坏神 II》中，这种效应会被放大，因为玩家击杀低等级敌人会受到惩罚。这种减速有时会非常令人沮丧，以至于破坏了玩家在加速阶段所体验到的快感。高级玩家通常会通过快速通过某些区域来跳过减速阶段。到了2000年代中期，经验丰富的《暗黑破坏神II》玩家经常会在一些关键地点加速通关，例如崔斯特瑞姆、古墓、毁灭王座等等，而完全忽略游戏的其他内容。在此之前，这种加速方式带来的减速是玩家普遍体验到的弊端，而这正是《暗黑破坏神II》设计师的初衷，因为他们希望玩家能够体验到更流畅、更轻松的加速过程。

There’s another important bit of information on the graph above: after an organic acceleration, there’s a corresponding deceleration that happens immediately afterwards. Almost all organic accelerations have the corresponding deceleration, because their primary reward is experience points. (You can see the deceleration marked by the number two on the graph above.) When a player uses an organic acceleration to gain a few levels in quick succession, he actually devalues the rewards of the next few areas or dungeons. Whenever a player enters a new dungeon at a higher level than necessary, the EXP rewards will seem relatively smaller. In Diablo II, this effect is magnified because players are penalized for killing lower-level enemies. This deceleration can sometimes be so frustrating that it spoils the euphoria that the player was experiencing during the acceleration. Advanced players often skip the decelerated part of the curve by running through certain zones. By the mid-2000s, experienced Diablo II players were often accelerating in a few key spots, like Tristram, the Tombs, Throne of Destruction, etc. and not even engaging with the rest of the game’s content. Before that became a widespread practice, the deceleration was a widely-experienced downside to the organic acceleration, and it was meant to be that way because the Diablo II designers had something else in mind for bigger and less frustrating accelerations.

微观世界中的谢弗变异

Schaefer Variation in Microcosm

有机加速对本书第三章的论点提出了挑战。如果由此产生的减速抵消了加速和加速流，我该如何论证《暗黑破坏神II》受益于加速和加速流呢？答案是，加速不止一种，而谢弗变式提供了一种“缓冲型”加速。如果说有机加速是加速的基本模型，那么独特武器掉落就是谢弗变式的基本模型。假设一位24级的圣骑士通关了烈焰之河，其中一个怪物掉落了独特的巨型权杖“锈柄”。这位圣骑士目前使用的是一件威力远低于这件独特掉落武器的魔法（蓝色）武器。突然之间，这位圣骑士的威力大幅提升，击杀敌人的速度也显著加快。因此，R/T比率向玩家倾斜。

The organic acceleration presents a problem for the thesis of Chapter 3 of this book. How can I claim that Diablo II benefits from accelerations and acceleration flow if the resulting decelerations cancel them out? The answer is that there is more than one kind of acceleration, and Schaefer variation provides a kind of acceleration with a softer landing, so to speak. If the organic acceleration is the basic model of accelerations in general, the unique weapon drop is the basic model of Schaefer variation. Let’s say that a level 24 Paladin clears the River of Flame, and one of the monsters there drops the unique grand scepter Rusthandle. That Paladin is currently using a magical (blue) weapon of significantly less power than the unique drop. Suddenly, that Paladin is a lot more powerful, and can kill enemies at a significantly faster rate. Thus, the R/T ratio grows in the player’s favor.

这张图表的关键区别在于没有相应的减速。相反，加速过程缓慢下降，直到R/T比率恢复到最常见的值。从圣骑士的角度来看，锈柄在初期威力极其强大，能帮助他以远超常人的速度横扫敌人。他无需停下来仔细探索每个区域。这把独特的钉头锤威力强大，可以让他快速穿越多个连续区域，并一路以更高的速度获取经验值和物品掉落。然而，随着游戏进程的深入，锈柄的相对威力逐渐减弱，直至与玩家在商店中可以买到的物品相当。此时，R/T比率恢复到基础值，加速过程结束。正是这种加速机制造就了《暗黑破坏神II》的独特魅力。

The important difference in this graph is that there’s no corresponding deceleration. Instead, the acceleration slowly falls off until the R/T ratio returns to its most common value. From the Paladin’s perspective, Rusthandle is extremely powerful at first, and helps him to smash through enemies at a rate which is much higher than normal. He doesn’t have to stop and exploit a single zone. The power of the unique mace can carry him through several consecutive zones quickly, collecting EXP and item drops at an enhanced rate the whole way. As he gets deeper into the game, however, the relative power of Rusthandle diminishes until it’s at the level of something the player could find in a shop. At that point, the R/T ratio returns to its base rate and the acceleration is over. It is this type of acceleration which makes Diablo II the game it is.

《暗黑破坏神II》的难度曲线也存在一些独特的陡峭变化。需要记住的重要一点是，游戏中的沙弗尔变体取决于程序生成。我们假设的圣骑士掉落的锈柄就是随机掉落的。游戏中没有任何敌人会保证掉落它，从而让玩家获得提升。同样，游戏中也经常会出现一些异常强大的怪物。这给玩家带来了更大的挑战。怪物的强度取决于试图击杀它们的角色。野蛮人不太担心带有“超快”词缀的特殊怪物；反正他们也会被敌人包围。如果野蛮人遇到带有“石肤”词缀（赋予物理抗性）的敌人，就会遇到一些麻烦。同样，女巫也不用担心“石肤”，因为她只造成元素伤害，但超快的怪物会让她难以保持安全距离。然而，无论什么职业，所有玩家最终都会遇到对他们角色来说特别棘手的怪物群。

Diablo II also has idiosyncratic spikes in difficulty. The important thing to remember about the game is that Schafer variation depends on procedural means. Rusthandle dropped for our hypothetical Paladin as a random drop. No enemy in the game is guaranteed to drop it and give the player an acceleration. By the same token, there are plenty of instances when an extra-powerful monster spawns and gives the player a bigger challenge. The power of monsters is relative to the character who tries to kill them. Barbarians don’t worry too much about unique monsters with the “Extra Fast” affix; they’re going to be surrounded by enemies anyway. If a Barbarian encounters an enemy with the Stone Skin affix (which confers physical resistance), it will give him a little more trouble. Similarly, the Sorceress doesn’t care about Stone Skin since she only deals elemental damage, but the extra fast monsters make it hard for her to stay at range, where she’s safe. Regardless of the class, however, all players will eventually encounter monster packs that are especially difficult for their character.

这些程序生成的超级怪物和程序掉落的超级武器推高了游戏难度，由此产生了谢弗式的难度变化。在游戏过程中，玩家将击杀成千上万的怪物，并遭遇数百组程序生成的超强敌人。由于玩家的胜算极大，游戏难度分布大致如下：

The result of these procedurally generated super-monsters and procedurally dropped super-weapons pushing the difficulty is Schafer variation. Across the course of the game, the player will kill thousands of monsters and encounter hundreds of procedurally generated packs of extra-powerful enemies. With all those chances for something to go either very right or very wrong for the player, the landscape of difficulty looks something like this:

在这张图中，我尝试通过不均匀地排列峰谷来表现谢弗变率的波动性。实际上，这些峰谷的位置可能非常分散，但它们无疑是《暗黑破坏神II》游戏体验的一部分。现在，让我们回到西角动量的原始图表。

In this graph, I have tried to represent the volatility of Schaefer variation by spacing the peaks and valleys unevenly. In reality, those peaks and valleys could be anywhere, but they’re definitely a part of the experience of Diablo II. Now, let’s bring back the original graph of what Nishikado motion looks like.

谢弗变式的波动性与西角动式通常的波动性不同，但总体结构相同。谢弗变式和西角动式还有另一个共同点。随着时间的推移，无论是传统动作游戏还是《暗黑破坏神II》，难度都会逐渐增加。下一节将探讨这一现象的成因，因为这个过程实际上远比表面看起来复杂得多。的确，所有关于游戏设计中事物如何运作的解释都比关于游戏设计中事物本身的解释更为复杂，但游戏设计的运作方式通常更有趣—— 《暗黑破坏神II》也不例外。

Schafer variation is volatile in a way that Nishikado motion usually isn’t, but the general structure is the same. There’s also another attribute that Schaefer variation and Nishikado motion have in common. Over time, both traditional action games and Diablo II gradually become more difficult. The next section examines how this happens because the process is actually much more complex than it seems. Indeed, all explanations of how things happen in game design are more complex than explanations of what things happens in game design, but the how of game design is usually more interesting—and Diablo II is no exception.

关于谢弗变奏的历史注释

Historical Note on Schaefer Variation

在进入下一节之前，我想先探讨一下角色扮演游戏（RPG）设计史上的一个问题：为什么会有谢弗变体（Schaefer variant）这种机制？为什么RPG需要模仿动作游戏的难度结构？《暗黑破坏神II》的原型——桌面RPG——并不像《暗黑破坏神II》那样频繁地采用大幅难度变化或加速机制。这是因为桌面RPG的节奏远比电脑RPG慢得多。即使桌面RPG中存在加速机制，玩家也很难察觉；即使是规模相对较小的桌面战斗，也可能需要三十分钟才能结束。桌面游戏不采用加速机制的另一个原因是，它们的设计理念是自适应难度。在组织良好的桌面游戏中，地下城主或游戏主持人会不断调整游戏难度，让玩家保持警惕。而电子RPG无法真正复制桌面游戏的动态难度。没有任何电脑程序能够匹敌一位优秀游戏主持人（DM）对玩家及其所处情境的洞察力。鉴于此，电子角色扮演游戏（RPG）借鉴了主机动作游戏中（极其成功的）难度结构也就不足为奇了。电子游戏设计中最古老的主题之一就是技术限制如何转化为艺术策略。因此，动态难度的缺失逐渐催生了电子游戏式的难度高峰和低谷，以及由此带来的难度加速。

Before moving on to the next section, I want to address an issue in the history of RPG design. Why does Schaefer variation exist in the first place? Why do RPGs need to emulate an action game difficulty structure? The tabletop RPGs from which Diablo II is descended don’t frequently employ major variations or accelerations in the same way a game like Diablo II does. It would be difficult for them to do so because those games proceed much more slowly than computer RPGs. Even if they did exist in tabletop form, accelerations would be hard to perceive; even relatively small tabletop battles can take thirty minutes to finish. Another reason that tabletop games don’t have accelerations is that they’re built with adaptive difficulty in mind. In a well-run tabletop session, the dungeon or game master will constantly adjust the difficulty of the game to keep players on their toes. Digital RPGs can’t really replicate the dynamic difficulty of a tabletop game. No computer program can match a good DM’s ability to read his or her players and the situation they find themselves in. Given this inability, it shouldn’t be surprising that digital RPGs borrowed the (extremely successful) difficulty structure that emerged from console action games. The oldest theme in videogame design is that technological constraints become artistic strategies. Thus, a lack of dynamic difficulty gradually gave rise to the incorporation of videogame-style difficulty peaks and valleys and the accelerations they sometimes yield.

长期困难和计划赤字

Long-Term Difficulty and Planned Deficits

如果《暗黑破坏神》的主要特点是难度随机波动和等级固定的区域，那么游戏如何才能随着时间推移而变得更难呢？最直接的方法是增加难度随机波动的频率，而这确实发生了。游戏的设计使得在后期难度下出现难度峰值的几率更高（主要是通过生成更多独特的怪物）。设计者不仅依赖随机峰值，他们还提高了游戏的基础难度，使得峰值之间的低谷随着玩家深入游戏而变得更加艰难。但是——在我们已经看到的严格的等级固定机制下，这又如何实现呢？答案是，在《暗黑破坏神II》中，角色等级的价值会随着游戏进程逐渐降低。

If Diablo’s primary characteristics are procedural swings in difficulty and level-deterministic zones, how can the game become more difficult over time? The most obvious way would be for the procedural spikes in difficulty to become more frequent, and that does happen. The game is designed so that there will be more chances for procedural peaks in difficulty in the later difficulties (mostly by spawning more unique monsters). The designers do not only rely on random peaks; they also raise the base difficulty of the game so that the valleys in between the peaks will be more difficult as the player gets deeper into the game. But still—how is this possible with the strict level determinism we’ve already seen? The answer is that in Diablo II, the value of character levels gradually diminishes across the course of the game.

我把这种设计动态称为“计划性赤字”。为了更简单地说明这个概念，我借鉴一下其他类型的游戏。在许多城镇/城市建造模拟游戏中，设计师会利用计划性赤字来制造危机，让玩家去解决。例如，在《模拟城市2000》中，游戏开始的前50年里建造的发电厂，其每美元发电量（兆瓦）的效率（相对于之后建造的发电厂）会越来越低。然而，这一个设计决策却产生了巨大的影响。

I call this design dynamic a planned deficit. To give a simple example of the idea, I’ll borrow from another genre. In many settlement/city-building simulation games, designers use planned deficits to cause crises for the player to solve. For example, in Sim City 2000, the power plants introduced in the first 50 years of game time are less and less efficient (than plants introduced later) in terms of megawatts per dollar. This single design decision accomplishes a lot, however.

首先，电力短缺会阻止玩家在游戏初期扩张过快，因为现有发电厂的投资回报率太低。这很好，因为它能防止玩家在后期所有建筑选项解锁之前就把地图填满。电力短缺也迫使玩家更理性地规划支出。购买燃气发电厂虽然更省空间，但每兆瓦的收益较低。到了游戏后期，玩家可以从微波发电厂和核电站获得最高的效率，但他们必须承担高昂的启动成本并据此进行规划。通过人为地制造电力短缺，设计者创造了一些固有的难题，需要玩家在整个游戏过程中解决。虽然这些问题需要测试和平衡（就像所有游戏的各个部分一样），但它们仍然表明，人为制造的电力短缺是游戏设计师工具箱中一个有用的工具。

For one thing, it prevents players from expanding too rapidly in the early part of the game, since the return on investment from available power plants is too low. This is good, because it prevents the player from completely filling the map before all the later building options become available. The deficit also forces players to take a more analytical approach to their spending. It’s easier to buy a gas power plant and save space, but the megawatt/dollar returns are lower. Then, later in the game, the player can get the best levels of efficiency from the microwave and nuclear power plants, but they have to deal with the high startup costs and plan accordingly. By deliberately building in a power deficit, the designers create inherent problems which the player has to solve throughout the game. Although these problems require testing and balancing (as all parts of every game do), they nevertheless show that the planned deficit is a useful tool in the game designer’s kit.

《暗黑破坏神II》也采用了计划性缺陷设计，尽管其具体实现方式有所不同。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家角色的初始属性——生命值、敏捷、技能等级以及其他通过升级而非装备获得的属性——足以让玩家轻松通关第一难度。虽然所有角色都应该尽可能地升级装备，但第一难度难度较低，玩家几乎无需停下来刷装备或经验。通常情况下，在城镇商店购买最好的装备就足以让玩家顺利通关。在所有普通难度内容中，玩家都能轻松应对。然而，在第二个难度设置下，玩家会逐渐发现商店购买的装备与角色自身属性的组合效果不如以前那么强了。特别是对于经验不足的玩家来说，这会导致比上一个难度下更多的死亡次数。玩家还会注意到，他们的升级速度实际上比以前慢了。[ 59 ]

Diablo II uses planned deficits as well, although it implements them in a different context. In Diablo II, the player-character’s natural stats—the HP, dexterity, skill levels, and other stats obtained through levels and not through gear—are enough to carry him or her through the first difficulty setting. Although all characters should upgrade their gear whenever they can, the first difficulty setting is easy enough that the player rarely has to stop and grind for gear or EXP. Buying the best gear available in the town shop is often good enough to push through all the normal content. On the second difficulty setting, however, the player will gradually find that gear from the shop combined with the character’s natural stats aren’t quite as strong as they used to be. Especially for inexperienced players, this will cause quite a few more deaths than the last difficulty. The player will also notice they actually level up slower than before.[59]

就玩家需要击杀的怪物数量和总耗时而言，随着难度等级的提升，R/T 比率会大幅下降。玩家不仅需要花费更多时间才能升级，R/T 比率也会降低，从而强化玩家对这一事实的感知。

In terms of the raw number of monsters a player has to kill and overall time, the R/T ratio drops a lot as the player hits the final difficulty setting. Not only will the player spend more actual time earning each level, but the R/T ratio also decreases to emphasize the player’s perception of that fact.

玩家获得的经验值相对减少仅仅是《暗黑破坏神II》中一系列设定缺陷的开始。随着玩家在游戏中不断深入，他们会发现由于各种属性的削弱，击杀敌人和生存都变得更加困难。主要的属性缺陷包括：

The decrease in the relative amount of EXP a player receives is only the beginning of the planned deficits that appear in Diablo II. As players make their way through the game, they will notice that it becomes harder to kill enemies and survive, because of a variety of stat deficits. The major deficits are:

进攻端的不足

Offensive Deficits

•玩家伤害损失

•The player damage deficit

•攻击评级不足

•The attack rating deficit

防守缺陷

Defensive Deficits

• HP 不足

•The HP deficit

•护甲/格挡不足

•Armor/block deficits

•元素抗性不足

•Elemental resistance deficit

尽管这些看似显而易见，但赤字的程度及其构成方式比人们预想的要复杂得多。我们将在下一节中探讨每项赤字是如何产生和平衡的。

Although these all seem obvious, the degree of the deficit and the means of its construction are more complex than one might expect. We’ll take a look at how each deficit is created and balanced in the following section.

损害赤字

The Damage Deficit

随着游戏进行，玩家对敌人造成的伤害相对于敌人的生命值而言会降低。造成伤害不足的原因有两个。第一个原因是敌人生命值的爆炸式增长，如下图所示。[ 60 ]

As the game goes on, the player does less damage to enemies, relative to how much HP those enemies have. There are two causes of the damage deficit. The first is the explosion in enemy HP, which is visualized on the in the following graph.[60]

游戏后期，尤其是在最高难度下，敌人的生命值增长速度远超之前。敌人的生命值大幅提升，武器的DPS根本跟不上。本页的下一张图表展示了使用当前等级下最好的魔法（蓝色）词缀的单手武器击杀普通怪物​​所需的时间，以此说明后期武器的威力不足。[ 61 ]

Late in the game, especially on the final difficulty setting, enemy HP starts to climb much faster than it did before. Enemy HP increases quite drastically and weapon DPS simply doesn’t keep up. The next graph on this page visualizes how long it would take to kill the average monster with a one-handed weapon with the best magical (blue) affix available at the current level, demonstrating how later weapons aren’t sufficient.[61]

（虽然这样可能不太容易想象，但施法武器的伤害提升也遵循类似的规律。）《暗黑破坏神II》的资深玩家可能会反驳：“纯粹的伤害词缀并非提升DPS的唯一途径！” 这当然没错。还有其他词缀可以增加元素伤害、攻击速度、最大或最小伤害等等。然而，想要获得拥有所有这些属性的装备，玩家需要花费额外的时间去刷怪。这会拖慢游戏节奏，让游戏感觉更加困难，因为经验值（R/T比率中最重要的部分）的获取速度会进一步下降。

(Although more difficult to visualize like this, the damage enhancement from caster weapons follows a similar trend.) Experienced players of Diablo II might object: “pure damage affixes aren’t the only way to increase DPS!” That’s absolutely true. There are other affixes that add elemental damage, attack speed, maximum or minimum damage, etc. Getting gear with all of those stats, however, requires the player to spend extra time farming. That slows the game down and makes it feel harder because the principle part of the R/T ratio (EXP) drops even more than it already has.

造成伤害不足的第二个主要因素是元素抗性（包括物理抗性）的日益普遍。在最高难度下，所有敌人都会对一种或多种元素（包括物理伤害）获得显著的抗性。在原本就已很高的生命值基础上，这些抗性进一步推高了敌人的生命值。为什么不直接提高敌人的生命值，而是增加他们的抗性呢？原因在于《暗黑破坏神II》的设计允许玩家以正交的方式解决抗性问题。如果敌人没有抗性但生命值很高，那么快速击败它的唯一方法就是提高玩家的伤害输出。如果敌人拥有正常的生命值但对某种元素有很高的抗性，玩家则有多种选择。玩家可以切换元素。正如我们在上一章中看到的，所有职业都至少可以使用两种元素。《暗黑破坏神II》也为玩家提供了降低抗性的方法。无论是通过主动技能（例如伤害增幅、降低抗性）、被动技能（例如冰霜掌控），还是通过直接降低敌人抗性的装备（例如棱镜、塔·拉夏的无眼之眼），都有多种方法可以突破敌人的抗性。根据怪物的不同，这些方法通常比直接提升伤害输出更容易获得。

The second major factor in the damage deficit is the increasing prevalence of elemental resistances (including resistance to physical damage). On the hardest difficulty setting, enemies all gain substantial resistance to one or more elements, including physical damage. On top of the trend of already-inflated HP pools, these resistances inflate enemy HP even further. Why not just make enemy HP totals higher instead of making enemies resistant? The reason is that Diablo II is designed so that resistances can be solved orthogonally. If an enemy has no resistance and tons of HP, the only way to defeat that enemy quickly is to increase the player’s damage output. If an enemy has a normal amount of HP and a high resistance to a certain element, the player has a variety of options. The player can switch elements. As we saw in the previous chapter, all the classes have access to at least two elements. Diablo II also gives players ways of mitigating resistances. Whether it’s through active abilities (Amplify Damage, Lower Resist), passive abilities (Cold Mastery), or through gear which reduces enemy resistance directly (Facets, Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye), there are orthogonal means of beating resistance. Depending on the monster, these means are often much easier to obtain than a commensurate increase in direct damage output.

无论采用何种方式，许多玩家都认为大幅提升敌人生命值是最糟糕的难度设置方式，因为它往往耗时过长，却并未增加游戏的趣味性。《暗黑破坏神II》并没有真正意义上将敌人变成“血牛”。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家需要在游戏过程中屠杀成千上万的敌人，通常每秒屠杀超过一个。由于在初始难度下敌人很容易被击杀，许多敌人甚至没有机会发动攻击。提高敌人的生命值可以让普通敌人存活足够长的时间，从而有机会开火并构成真正的威胁。在威胁之下，玩家必须运用防御和移动技能，这使得游戏更具挑战性。此外，更高的伤害威胁意味着玩家也必须在装备上投入防御属性。正如我们将在下一节中看到的，这是游戏后期加速机制的重要组成部分。

Regardless of how it’s accomplished, many players find the drastic inflation of enemy HP to be the worst form of difficulty, as it is often time consuming without being more interesting. Diablo II isn’t really guilty of turning enemies into “bullet sponges” in the traditional sense, however. Diablo II requires the player to slaughter thousands of enemies across the course of the game, often at a rate of more than one a second. Because the enemies on the first difficulty setting die so quickly, many of them don’t even get a chance to attack. Increasing their HP allows normal enemies to survive long enough to get a shot off and pose a real threat. Under threat, the player has to use their defensive and mobility skills, making the game more interesting. Moreover, the increased threat of damage means that the player has to invest in defensive stats on their gear as well. As we’ll see in the next section, that’s an important part of late-game acceleration dynamics.

攻击等级不足

Attack Rating Deficit

虽然在最高难度下所有敌人都会获得一种元素免疫，但物理免疫却是第二少见的类型，仅占所有免疫怪物的5%。这可能是因为大多数物理技能本身就受到命中率的限制。游戏过程中会逐渐出现命中率不足的情况，虽然远不如其他一些不足那么严重，而且主要影响近战角色在面对首领（以及弓箭亚马逊）时的表现。还有更多）。下图可视化了平均敏捷度的角色在拥有最佳攻击等级武器词缀的情况下，对付平均敌人的命中率。[ 62 , 63 ]

Although all enemies gain one type of elemental immunity on the hardest difficulty, physical immunity is the second-least common type, at only 5% of all immune monsters. This is probably because most physical skills are already hampered by hit rating. There is a hit rating deficit which emerges across the course of the game, although it’s not nearly as large as some of the other deficits, and it primarily affects melee characters when they face bosses (and Bowazons a lot more). The following graph visualizes hit rates by an average character against an average enemy with an average amount of dexterity and the best available weapon affix for attack rating.[62,63]

当然，我们还要考虑武器使用者通过技能获得的攻击等级加成。这种加成通常非常可观。下面，我可视化展示了野蛮人武器精通技能的影响。[ 64 ]

Of course, we also have to take into account the attack rating bonus that weapon-using characters gain from their skills. This bonus is often copious. Below, I have visualized the impact of the Barbarian’s weapon mastery skills.[64]

大多数优秀的被动技能，只要投入足够的资源，都能使攻击角色的攻击力提升三倍，而后期战斗技能通常还能再增加200%到300%的攻击力。（这些加成几乎都是累加的）。所有这些加起来，足以弥补大部分的攻击力不足​​。

Most of the better passive skills triple the attacking character’s AR with proper investment, and endgame combat skills commonly add another 200%–300% to it. (These bonuses are almost always additively applied). All of these combine to neutralize most of the attack rating deficit.

然而，关于命中率不足的问题，还有几点需要考虑。首先，近战职业仅凭被动技能就能达到约75%的命中率，而法师只要法术动画击中敌人，就能保证命中。其次，攻击技能通常能让玩家的命中率接近最大值（95%），但敌人仍然可以格挡。第三，角色面对首领时的命中率差距几乎总是比面对普通敌人时更大。一个角色对普通敌人的命中率达到90%时，对迪亚波罗或巴尔的命中率则会低得多。这些首领等级更高、护甲值更高、格挡率也更高。任何想要刷首领的近战角色仍然需要使用大量的攻击力装备。正如我们之前看到的，攻击力提升幅度过大会导致收益递减。下面，我重新展示了并扩展了第一部分中的图表，该图表显示了随着攻击力的提升，击中与角色等级相同的怪物的概率。[ 65 ]

There are still a few things to consider about the hit rating deficit, however. First, while melee classes can get to about 75% hit rate with just their passive skills, spell casters always hit as long as the spell animation hits the enemy sprite. Second, attack skills often get the player close to maximum hit rating (95%), but enemies can still block. Third, the character will almost always have a higher deficit against bosses than they do against common enemies. A character hitting normal enemies at 90% will hit Diablo or Baal at a much lower rate. Those bosses have higher levels, better armor ratings, and better block rates. Any melee character looking to farm bosses will still have to use lots attack rating gear. As we saw earlier, attack rating incurs diminishing returns in large quantities. Just below, I have brought back and expanded the graph from part one, which shows the chances of hitting a monster of the same level as the character as attack rating increases.[65]

如果玩家的命中率较低，攻击等级（AR）能带来巨大的收益；但如果命中率较高，收益则微乎其微。这使得只使用攻击的角色很难在高等级时堆叠命中等级，而施法者则不存在这种劣势。此外，这种曲线也使得精确计算一定数量的攻击等级的价值变得困难；因为数值始终在变化。在后续的等级等效性计算中，我将指出，正是由于这种动态变化，攻击等级在装备威力方面才会发挥至关重要的作用。

Players gain a ton of benefit from AR if their hit rate is low, but gain very little if their hit rate is high. This makes it difficult for characters that only use attacks to be able to stack hit rating at the highest levels, a disadvantage that spellcasters do not face. This curve also makes it difficult to precisely calculate the value of a quantity of attack rating; the amount is always changing. Further on in the level equivalency calculations, I will point out when AR is a huge factor in the power of a piece of gear because of this dynamic.

护甲和格挡不足

Armor and Block Deficits

护甲不足的问题比其他不足的问题要复杂一些，因为它必然涉及大量的装备。角色的护甲值由所有护甲的总和构成：胸甲、头盔、手套、腰带、靴子和盾牌。找到一件带有最佳词缀的单件装备已经不容易，而要找到五六件带有最佳词缀的装备更是难上加难。套装的随机性使得找到任何套装的所有部件都变得异常困难，更不用说找到角色当前等级下所有最佳防御词缀的套装了。因此，我已将这两种情况可视化。从最好的魔法物品中获得的护甲值，以及从词缀强度为最佳物品一半的装备中获得的护甲值。[ 66 , 67 ]

The armor deficit is a little more complicated than the other deficits because it necessarily involves a large number of items. A character’s armor rating is made up of the sum of all their armor: chest, helm, gloves, belt, boots, and shield. It’s never easy to find a single item with the best possible affix, but trying to find five or six items with the best possible affixes is exceedingly difficult. Set randomness makes it hard to find every piece of any set, let alone sets of the best available defense affix at the character’s current level. Accordingly, I have visualized both the armor value obtained from the best magical items, as well as the armor value obtained from gear with an affix half as powerful as the best one available.[66,67]

请注意，图表显示的是敌人攻击等级 (AR) 与角色防御等级之间的差值，因此数值降至负值意味着玩家处于劣势。正如您所见，最好的魔法物品在任何时候都无法将玩家的防御等级提升到 50% 以上，到了最高难度，这些物品更是完全不够用。事实上，到了 85 级，即使是游戏中最好的独特护甲也无法与敌人的命中等级相匹配（护甲值 3313，而敌人的平均命中等级为 3971）。[ 68 ]对于近战职业来说，像“反抗”或“铁皮”这样的技能可以让他们超过一半的防御等级，但对于施法者来说，护甲不足的问题则更难解决。

Note that the graph charts the difference between enemy AR and character defense, so that plunge into the negatives means the player is at a deficit. As you can see, the best magical items don’t lift the player much above 50% at any time, and by the last difficulty setting, they are totally inadequate. Indeed, by level 85, even the best unique armor in the game isn’t sufficient to match the hit rating of enemies (3313 armor vs 3971 average hit rating).[68] For the melee classes, abilities like Defiance or Iron Skin would put them over the halfway mark, but for casters the armor deficit is a more difficult problem to solve.

对于所有职业来说，解决方案的一部分是使用盾牌，盾牌提供了一种称为格挡的特殊闪避方式。许多角色可以装备盾牌，以牺牲部分伤害为代价来换取安全。之前我们看到，格挡值会随着等级的提升而降低，除非玩家投入大量资源提升敏捷属性。[ 69 ]

Part of the solution for every class is the use of a shield, which confers a separate form of evasion called blocking. Many characters can equip a shield to trade some damage for safety. Earlier, we saw that block goes down as level rises, unless the player invests heavily in dexterity.[69]

敏捷属性高的角色在整个游戏过程中都能很好地格挡攻击，但还有另一个因素需要考虑：盾牌的基础格挡率上限约为50%。最好的词缀可以将格挡率提升至70%。基于这个基础值，大多数近战职业无需极高的敏捷属性就能达到75%的格挡率。对他们来说，敏捷属性不会造成任何预期的劣势。而对于施法职业来说，格挡率在游戏后期会大幅下降，使他们更容易受到攻击。近战职业拥有更高的格挡率并不令人意外，但这确实表明，施法职业必须克服另一个预期的属性劣势来弥补其远程攻击能力的不足。

Characters that are built with tons of dexterity will block well throughout the game, but there’s another factor to consider: the base block rate on shields maxes out at about 50%. The best affixes can bring this up to 70%. From this base amount, most melee classes can reach a 75% block rate without a superlative amount of dexterity. For them, there is one stat that doesn’t incur a planned deficit. For the caster classes, block rate does drop quite a bit in the later game, making them more vulnerable. It’s not surprising that the melee classes have better block rates, but it does show that casters have to deal with another planned deficit to make up for their ranged powers.

HP 赤字

The HP Deficit

虽然看起来应该是最直接的亏空形式，但玩家角色的生命值亏空远比表面看起来复杂得多。衡量玩家角色生命值亏空的最简单方法是计算普通敌人需要攻击玩家角色多少次才能将其击杀。[ 70 , 71 ]

Although it seems like it should be the most straightforward form of deficit, the player-character HP deficit is much more complex than it seems. The simplest way to measure of the player-character HP deficit is to calculate the number of times the average enemy would need to hit the player-character to kill him or her.[70,71]

随着时间的推移，敌人造成的伤害增长速度超过了角色平均生命值的增长速度。如果我们单独来看敌人造成的伤害，这个趋势似乎更加直接——也更加乏味。[ 72 ]

Over time, enemy damage outpaces average character HP growth. If we look at enemy damage by itself, the trend seems even more straightforward—and boring.[72]

伤害增长似乎只是《暗黑破坏神II》线性等级决定论的函数，除此之外别无其他，但这并非全部真相。如果我们以百分比而非绝对值来考察敌人伤害的增长，就会发现不同的趋势。[ 73 ]

Damage growth appears to be a function of the linear level-determinism of Diablo II and nothing more, but this is not the whole story. If we examine the growth of enemy damage as a percent instead of an absolute number, a different trend emerges.[73]

虽然敌人攻击的绝对伤害稳步增长，但增长速度在第一个难度级别后实际上趋于平缓。相比之下，敌人的生命值在最高难度级别下几乎呈指数级增长，由此可见，设计者对如何构建游戏有着清晰的思路。难度。回顾第一张图表中最佳生命值加成道具为玩家提供的生命值相对数值，这种动态关系就更加清晰了。生命值缺口的设计目标是小于伤害缺口。玩家需要收集一系列强力道具来弥补生命值和伤害两方面的不足，但弥补生命值缺口应该更容易一些。设计者不希望玩家频繁死亡；他们希望最大的挑战在于击杀敌人。

Although the absolute damage of enemy attacks grows at a steady pace, the rate of the growth actually flattens out after the first difficulty setting. Compare this to the growth of enemy HP, which rises almost exponentially on the final difficulty setting, and it’s clear that the designers had a clear idea of how to construct difficulty. This dynamic is even clearer when you look back at the relative amount of HP the best HP modifier affords the player in the first graph. The HP deficit is constructed to be smaller than the damage deficit. Players have to hunt a whole set of great items make up for the deficit in both areas, but it’s supposed to be easier to make up the former. The designers don’t want the player to die all the time; they want the biggest hurdle to be killing enemies.

还有另一种情况，生命值不足比伤害不足更容易被接受，这也很好地体现了游戏后期装备的设计原则。高级武器上常见的一个词缀是“每次攻击吸取生命值百分比”，通常被称为“生命偷取”或“生命吸取”。这个属性实际上增加了生命值上限，因为它会在角色攻击敌人时持续恢复生命值。（这是少数几个只对物理攻击有效而对法术无效的属性之一。）虽然生命偷取无法直接等同于一个具体的生命值数值，但这种增加角色生命值的正交方式再次向我们展示了设计者希望玩家如何获得更强的力量。

There is another way in which the HP deficit is more forgiving than the damage deficit, and it serves as a good example of the design principles that shape endgame gear. One affix commonly found on higher level weapons is the “% Life Stolen Per Hit,” commonly referred to as “lifesteal” or “life leech.” This stat effectively makes the HP pool larger, as it constantly restores HP to characters when they strike the enemy. (This is one of the few stats that only benefits physical attacks rather than spells.) It’s not really possible to make Lifesteal equivalent to a definite amount of HP, but the existence of an orthogonal means of increasing character HP shows us again how the designers intended players to acquire more power.

解决不足之处：独特项目和低质量商品

Solving the Deficits: Unique Items and LEQ

所有玩过《暗黑破坏神II》的人都知道，强力装备是游戏的核心。读完这篇分析，你可能已经猜到，游戏中诸多设计缺陷的目的就是为了迫使玩家去寻找装备。你的猜测完全正确。本节将探讨装备是如何弥补这一缺陷的，因为游戏设计的关键不在于宏大的构想，而在于如何将这些构想付诸实践。《暗黑破坏神II》告诉我们，打造强力装备并非只有一种方法。事实上， 《暗黑破坏神II》允许玩家通过多种途径变得异常强大，这正是它最伟大的成就之一。

Everyone who has played Diablo II knows that powerful gear is at the heart of the game. Reading this analysis, you have probably guessed that the purpose of the many planned deficits is to force the player into finding gear. That is absolutely correct. What this section studies is how gear fills that gap because the most important thing in game design is not in the broad ideas, but in the execution of those ideas. What we see in Diablo II is that there is no one way to create a powerful item. Indeed, the variety of ways in which Diablo II allows players to become absurdly powerful is one of its greatest accomplishments.

使用 LEQ 测量功率

Measuring Power with LEQ

尽管《暗黑破坏神II》通过装备为玩家提供了种类繁多的能力，但我们仍然需要对这些能力进行量化评估。为此，我使用了一种名为“等级等效性”（Level Equivalency，简称LEQ）的统计数据。角色扮演游戏（RPG）的一大特色是角色可以升级，而升级会赋予角色新的能力。在像《暗黑破坏神II》这样的游戏中，每个角色等级在绝对意义上都是同等重要的，我们可以将这些等级作为衡量单位，来确定特定技能或装备与其他技能或装备之间的比较。例如，当一个角色在《暗黑破坏神II》中升级时，他会增加多少生命值？我们可以将这个生命值数值作为衡量标准。接下来，让我们看看如何计算出相当于一个角色等级的生命值数值。

Although Diablo II offers a great variety of powers to its players through gear, we still need to be able to assess those powers quantitatively. To do this, I use a statistic called level equivalency, or LEQ. One of the defining features of an RPG is that its characters gain levels, and gaining levels grants characters new powers. In a game like Diablo II, in which every character level is equally valuable in an absolute sense, we can use those levels as a unit of measurement to determine how specific abilities or pieces of gear compare to others. For example, when a character gains a level in Diablo II, how much health do they gain? We can use this amount of health as a measuring stick, so to speak. Let’s take a look at the process of figuring out how much HP is equivalent to one character level.

1.首先，我们要明确，当一个角色获得“一级”生命值时，意味着玩家将五个可选属性点投入到生命值属性（活力）中。

1.First, we’ll establish that when a character gains a “level” of HP, it means the player invests the five elective stat points into the HP stat, vitality.

2.其次，我们需要使用一个“中立”或平均水平的角色。我们不选择某个特定的角色职业，而是取角色生命值的中位数。增益。中等身材的角色每升一级获得2点生命值，此外，每投入一点生命值到体质属性中，额外获得3点生命值。

2.Second, we need to use a “neutral” or average character. Instead of picking one character class, we’ll take the median amount of HP a character can gain. A median character gains two HP per level, plus three HP per stat point invested in vitality.

3.如果我们的中立角色将 5 点属性点投入活力，而每点活力值 3 点生命值，那么就是 15 点生命值。再加上角色每升一级自动获得的 2 点生命值，我们就知道中立角色每升一级生命值相当于多少了：17 点生命值。

3.If our neutral character invests five points in vitality, and each is point is worth three HP, that’s 15 HP. Add in two more HP that the character gets automatically at every level, and we know what a level of HP is worth to a neutral character: 17 HP.

现在，当我们查看那些能提供生命值的物品或技能时，我们将以17作为衡量生命值等级的基准。例如，独特的头盔“岩石阻挡者”提供15点活力（或中立角色45点生命值），相当于2.6级。显然，角色不可能直接升到0.6级，但小数部分仍然可以作为参考。

Now, when we look at items or abilities that confer HP, we’ll use 17 as the benchmark that signifies a level’s worth of HP. For example, the unique helm Rockstopper grants 15 vitality (or 45 HP for a neutral character), worth 2.6 levels. Obviously, a character can’t gain 0.6 levels, but the decimal portion is still useful as a measure.

关于LEQ的运作方式及其意义，有几点需要了解。最重要的是，它实际上并非衡量角色整体等级的提升。LEQ衡量的是特定技能或装备的某个方面相对于角色等级的表现。如果角色穿戴一件提供34点生命值的装备，这并不等同于提升了两级。这仅仅意味着他获得了相当于两级生命值提升的效果。同样，如果一个角色获得了相当于八级的伤害输出，这并不意味着他真的提升了八级——他只是拥有了相当于高八级角色的攻击力。提升八级意味着生命值、命中率、技能点数等等都会提升，这些数值无法一次性计算，而且也很少会同时出现在一件装备上。关于LEQ，另一点需要注意的是，它有时会受到具体情况的影响。一件提供34点生命值的物品，其LEQ值始终为2；但一件提供10%生命值加成的物品，其LEQ值会随着玩家生命值的增长而变化。一旦玩家的基础生命值超过340，该物品的LEQ值就会大于2。同样，诸如DPS、元素抗性和伤害减免等属性的提升也取决于具体情况。一件减少10点所有伤害的物品在低等级时非常宝贵，因为平均伤害通常不会超过10点。而在高等级时，10%的伤害减免则价值更高，因为一些终局怪物（尤其是首领）每次攻击造成的伤害远超100点。鉴于这种动态变化，我已针对每件物品在相应的等级环境下进行了所有LEQ值的计算。

There are a few important things to know about how LEQ works and what it means. The most important thing to know is that it doesn’t actually measure overall character level improvement. Rather, LEQ measures how a certain aspect of a skill or piece of gear performs compared to character levels. If the character puts on a piece of gear with 34 HP, it’s not the same as gaining two levels. It’s simply that he gains the amount of HP that two levels would grant. Similarly, if a character gains eight levels’ worth of damage output, he hasn’t gained eight levels—he simply hits like a character eight levels higher. Gaining eight levels would involve gaining HP, hit rating, skill points, and so forth, all things that would be impossible to calculate at one time and which rarely all appear together on a single item. The other important thing to know about LEQ is that, sometimes, it can be highly contextual. An item that grants 34 HP always has an LEQ of two, but an item that grants a 10% bonus to HP has an LEQ that changes as the player’s HP pool grows. As soon as the player’s base HP exceeds 340, the item will have an LEQ of greater than two. Similarly, increases in things like DPS, elemental resistance, and damage reduction are all dependent on their context. An item that reduces all damage by 10 is extremely valuable at low levels because average damage doesn’t exceed 10 by much. At higher levels, a 10% damage reduction is vastly more valuable because some of the endgame monsters (especially bosses) can do far more than 100 damage per strike. Because of this dynamic, I have performed all LEQ calculations using level-appropriate contexts for every item.

物品还能做什么？

What Else Can an Item Do?

装备能提升玩家的战斗力，使其获得超出其等级应有的实力。有些提升显而易见。例如，单手棍“费洛克”虽然是3级物品，但其攻击力却相当于15级武器，装备等级（LEQ）高达12。游戏初期本身就比较简单，但如果低等级玩家在崔斯特瑞姆副本中装备“费洛克”，就能明显感受到这种提升。另一种截然不同的提升方式是，29级的“耳语之弦”腰带可以减少12点魔法伤害。在这个等级，普通敌人每次施法造成的伤害只有大约21点，因此，伤害减免效果使玩家获得超过 300 点的有效生命值加成（对抗魔法），相当于提升了近 19 级。

Gear causes accelerations by giving players more power than would ordinarily be appropriate for their level. Some of these ways are obvious. The one-handed club Felloak is a level three item, but it hits like a level 15 weapon, for an LEQ of 12. The beginning of the game is already easy, but if a low-level player equips Felloak while doing Tristram runs, they’ll feel the acceleration. In a totally different manner, the String of Ears belt is a level 29 item that reduces magic damage received by 12 points. At that level, common enemies only do about 21 damage per spell, and so the damage reduction gives the player an effective HP bonus (vs magic) of more than 300 points, or almost 19 levels.

值得关注的项目调查，附 LEQ

A Survey of Noteworthy Items, with LEQ

在本节中，我将重点介绍一些以其高LEQ值著称的物品，以及它们实现这些数值的各种方式。虽然游戏中存在大量强力物品，但我尽量专注于那些以不同方式展现强大力量的物品。同时，我也试图指出LEQ系统存在不足或缺陷的地方。需要特别说明的是，这里的LEQ总值并不等同于玩家获得的等级提升。例如，一件物品如果能为玩家提供6点LEQ的伤害和8点LEQ的火焰抗性，其LEQ值为14。但请不要误以为这件物品能让玩家提升14级。LEQ总值并非直接加到玩家角色等级上的精确数值。您可以将其理解为物品各种能力的简要概括。我着重强调的是《暗黑破坏神II》如何以多种方式提供强大的力量。通过这套系统，我分析的是游戏的设计，而不是试图发明一种评估玩家装备以实现最佳游戏体验的方法。任何类似的测量系统都不可能完美，但如果我们了解其局限性，像 LEQ 这样的工具仍然可以帮助我们理解游戏设计。

In this section, I’m going to highlight some items that are notable for their high LEQ values, as well as the variety of ways in which they achieve those values. Although there are a huge number of powerful items in the game, I have tried to focus on items that are powerful in orthogonal ways. I have also tried to highlight places where the LEQ system is insufficient or flawed. One proviso I need to make more generally is that the LEQ totals here are not equivalent to total levels gained. For example, an item that gives the player six LEQ of damage and eight LEQ of fire resistance would be rated at 14 LEQ. Nobody should make the mistake of thinking that this item makes the player 14 levels stronger. The total LEQ value is not an exact measurement that gets added to a player’s character level. Think of it more as a brief summary of an item’s various powers. What I’m highlighting is the way that Diablo II offers large amounts of power in a variety of ways. With this system, I’m analyzing the game’s design, not trying to invent a way of assessing player gear for optimal play. No measurement system like this can ever be perfect, but tools like LEQ can still help us to understand game design if we understand its limitations.

（请注意，本小节其余部分的计算均基于从《亚瑞特峰——项目》中获得的数据。）[ 74 ]

(Note that the calculations for the rest of this subsection are all based on data obtained from The Arreat Summit—Items.)[74]

武器

Weapons

冷钢之眼：弯刀，28 LEQ

Coldsteel Eye: Cutlass, 28 LEQ

这把单手武器很好地展示了一些可以用LEQ衡量的简单伤害加成。玩家在1级就能装备它，它的伤害就已经相当于比实际等级高23级的武器了。这主要得益于其高达225%的伤害加成。再加上“致命一击”词缀（偶尔会使伤害翻倍），这把剑的伤害现在相当于比实际等级高28级的武器了。

This one-handed weapon is a good example of some fairly simple damage bonuses that can be measured in LEQ. At the first level the player can equip this, it already hits like a weapon 23 levels higher than it really is. Most of that is from a large damage modifier (225%). EAdd to this the “deadly strike” affix, which occasionally doubles damage, and this sword now hits like a weapon 28 levels higher than it actually is.

风暴尖刺：匕首，62 LEQ

Stormspike: Stiletto, 62 LEQ

元素抗性可以出现在任何装备上，但武器上的出现频率远低于护甲。风暴尖刺提供70点闪电抗性，在玩家获得这把武器时，相当于大约42级生命值。正如我之前所说，它实际上只相当于42点闪电抗性，但被闪电附魔的敌人是游戏中最棘手的敌人之一。风暴尖刺的攻击力也如同比实际等级高20级的武器。

Elemental resistance can appear on any piece of gear, but it’s less common on weapons than it is on armor. Stormspike offers 70 lightning resistance, which is worth about 42 levels of HP at the time the player can get this weapon. As I’ve said before, it’s really only worth 42 LEQ against lightning, but lightning-enchanted enemies are one of the biggest nuisances in the game. Stormspike also hits like a weapon 20 levels higher than it actually is.

幽灵碎片：刀刃，10 + LEQ

Spectral Shard: Blade, 10+ LEQ

这把武器几乎与寒钢之眼截然相反，它的攻击力实际上只有-11点低级品质（或者说，它的攻击力相当于同等级同类型最佳蓝色武器低11级的魔法武器）。但这把武器并不适合近战。相反，它……这件武器提供约1.7 LEQ的全元素抗性，以及大量的“快速施法速度”（FCR）词缀。由于FCR的效果取决于角色施放的法术，因此无法用LEQ来衡量，但这件物品是游戏中FCR的最佳来源之一，可以提升约30%的法术DPS。对于几乎所有攻击性法术而言，这相当于两位数的LEQ加成。

Almost the opposite of Coldsteel Eye, this weapon actually hits for -11 LEQ (or, it hits like a magical weapon 11 levels lower than the best blue weapon of its type at the same level). But melee combat is not what this weapon is for. Instead, this weapon offers about 1.7 LEQ of resistance against all elements, and a great deal of an affix called “faster cast rate” (FCR). The latter affix can’t be measured by LEQ because it depends on what spell the character is casting, but this item is one of the best sources for FCR in the game, and would boost spell DPS about 30%. This boost is, for virtually all offensive spells, a double-digit LEQ bonus.

玉坦道：匕首，216 LEQ *

The Jade Tan Do: Dagger, 216 LEQ*

完成所有LEQ计算后，我在按LEQ值排序时首先注意到了这件物品。我的计算结果显示它价值高达216级。但这具有误导性，因为尽管它提供了大量的伤害和抗性，但这些都集中在毒素元素上。最初，伤害计算得出的LEQ值为70，但毒素伤害是随时间推移的，换算成DPS后，实际LEQ值约为14。这件物品从毒素抗性中获得了额外的192级LEQ，但这同样具有误导性。毒素伤害是游戏中最少见、危害最小的伤害类型之一。游戏中只有两个强制挑战的敌人会造成大量毒素伤害，因此，除非玩家正在与安达利尔或诅咒者阿赫梅尔战斗，否则这种毒素抗性并没有计算结果显示的那么有用。

Once I had done all the LEQ calculations, I noticed this item first when I sorted by highest LEQ. My calculations said it was worth a whopping 216 levels. This is misleading because although it offers a lot of damage and a lot of resistance, it’s all in the poison element. Originally, the damage calculation yielded an LEQ of 70, but poison damage is spread out over time, and when converted to DPS, it comes out to about 14 LEQ instead. The item gains another 192 LEQ from poison resistance, but this is also misleading. Poison damage is one of the least common and least dangerous types of damage in the game. There are only two mandatory enemies in the game that put out large amounts of poison damage, so unless the player is fighting Andariel or Achmel the Cursed, this poison resistance is not as useful as the calculation indicates.

光剑：相位刃，70 LEQ

Lightsabre: Phase Blade, 70 LEQ

这件武器完美地诠释了其优势如何根据玩家实际获得它的等级而调整。它会在游戏后期掉落，此时敌人的防御力已经相当高。因此，它能无视这些敌人的防御，这本身就相当于提升了19级，可谓一项独特的优势。此外，它的攻击力也相当于高27级的武器，并且还拥有中等的闪电抗性。

This weapon is a great example of benefits inflected for the level at which the player actually might find it. This item drops late in the game, at a point where enemies are sporting quite a bit of defense. Accordingly, it gains about 19 levels just because it ignores those enemies’ defenses, which is an orthogonal perk. It also hits like a weapon 27 levels higher and offers moderate lightning resistance.

Azurewrath：相位之刃，85级以上1600 DPS

Azurewrath: Phase Blade, 1600 DPS Above Level 85

就像许多复杂的游戏评分系统（比如棒球高级数据统计！）一样，LEQ 无法准确衡量真正的极端情况。就此而言，LEQ 无法衡量游戏中最好的独特武器——碧蓝之怒——的真正价值，因为它没有参照物。我无法将碧蓝之怒与伤害词缀等级高于 85 级的魔法武器进行比较，因为这样的物品并不存在。但我可以肯定的是，与单手武器的最高 DPS 相比，碧蓝之怒的 DPS 比它高出 1600 点。这并非指每次攻击造成 1600 点伤害，而是指每秒造成 1600 点伤害，而且这还没算上游戏中技能造成的伤害加成。我研究这件物品的另一个原因是它的威力来源很有意思。碧蓝之怒并非只有一个超高的伤害词缀，而是拥有多个不同的伤害加成。装备上有一个250%直接伤害词缀，以及若干元素伤害词缀，总计可造成750点额外伤害，这些伤害类型各异。虽然这些额外词缀不会使技能伤害倍率提升，但它们仍然有用，因为它们可以对免疫物理伤害的敌人造成伤害。

Like many complex rating systems that measure games (I’m looking at you, advanced baseball stats!), LEQ fails to accurately measure truly extreme cases. In this case, LEQ cannot measure the true value of the best unique sword in the game—Azurewrath—because there’s nothing to compare it to. I can’t compare Azurewrath to a magical weapon with a damage affix that’s higher than level 85 because such an item doesn’t exist. What I can say is that, compared to the maximum DPS available on a one-handed weapon, Azurewrath exceeds that amount by 1600. That’s not 1600 damage per hit, that’s 1600 damage per second, and that’s before the game factors damage from abilities that multiply the damage of the weapon. Another reason why I examine this item is that the means of its power are interesting. Rather than having a single, outsized damage affix, Azurewrath has several different damage bonuses. There is a 250% direct damage affix, as well as several elemental damage affixes totaling 750 additional damage of several types. While these additional affixes don’t incur multiplicative damage from skills, they are still useful because they will damage enemies who are immune to physical damage.

梅的哀歌：阴森魔杖，12 LEQ

Ume’s Lament: Grim Wand, 12 LEQ

这把死灵法师武器提供多种技能等级的直接加成。说到技能等级加成词缀的LEQ值，计算起来很简单：对特定技能（例如火球术）的+1加成就等于技能等级提升1级。也就是说，我们不能简单地把一件物品上所有技能等级加成词缀的数值加起来就得出LEQ值，因为很多词缀的计算方式要复杂得多。例如，乌梅的哀歌提供所有死灵法师技能+2的加成。这是否意味着LEQ值是2？不是，因为它影响的是所有死灵法师技能。死灵法师拥有超过20个技能。那么LEQ值是40或更多吗？同样不是，因为死灵法师实际上并不会直接使用所有这些技能。因此，我将“所有技能”词缀的价值定义为每提升1点技能等级对应3个LEQ值。原因在于，《暗黑破坏神II》中的大多数流派主要依赖于三个技能。有些流派更依赖某些技能，有些流派则依赖某些技能，但大多数流派会将大部分技能点分配到三个主要技能上，因此“所有技能+2 ”修正值相当于6个LEQ，因为它将三个不同技能的等级分别提升了2点。

This necromancer weapon offers various direct bonuses to skill levels. Now, when it comes to the LEQ value of +skill affixes, the math portion is really easy; a +1 bonus to a specific skill (like Fireball) is equal to exactly one level of skill. That said, we can’t just add up all the +skill affixes on an item and say that’s the LEQ value because many of the modifiers are more complex than that. For example, Ume’s Lament offers +2 to all necromancer skills. Does that mean the LEQ is two? No, because it affects all necromancer skills. The necromancer has more than 20 skills. Is the LEQ 40 or more? Again, no, because the Necromancer isn’t actually going to use all of those skills directly. Instead, I value the “all skills” modifier at three LEQ per one point to all skills. The reason is that most builds in Diablo II rely primarily on three skills. Some builds rely on more, some builds rely on less, but most builds split the majority of their skill points between three primary skills, so the “+2 to all skills” modifier is worth six LEQ because it raises the level of three different skills by two points each.

乌梅的哀歌还有其他一些效果。除了强化所有死灵法师技能外，它还会强化两个特定技能：恐惧和衰老。对于这种情况，我不得不手动在电子表格中核对技能。这两个技能都是死灵法师的诅咒。敌人一次只能受到一个诅咒的影响。因此，我将这两个诅咒的加成值设定为 3（​​两个诅咒的加成总和），因为死灵法师通常只会使用其中一个，而且肯定一次只会使用一个。这种估值完美吗？当然不完美。有些玩家会使用四个技能，有些玩家会使用五个，而这些玩家往往是《暗黑破坏神II》的高手。本文并非旨在探讨最优解，而是一份针对普通玩家行为的设计分析，而大多数玩家的大部分时间都只使用三个技能。

Ume’s Lament also has other modifiers, however. In addition to buffing all necromancer skills, it also buffs two specific skills: Terror and Decrepify. For cases like these, I had to manually audit skills in my spreadsheet. Both of these skills are necromancer curses. Enemies can only be under the effects of one curse at a time. Therefore, I value the bonuses at an LEQ of three (the bonus given to both of the curses), since the Necromancer will mostly be using just one of them, and certainly only one at a time. Is this valuation perfect? No, of course it isn’t. There are some players who use four skills, and some who use five, and those players are often extremely proficient at Diablo II. This is not a theorycrafting text for optimal play; this is a design analysis that focuses on average player behavior, and most players spend most of their time using three skills.

梅的哀歌也因适中的法力加成而获得 3 个 LEQ。

Ume’s Lament also gains three LEQ from a moderate mana bonus.

野兽：符文之语，45 LEQ *

Beast: Runeword, 45 LEQ*

在本章节乃至整个文档中，我基本上没有讨论符文之语。原因有二。首先，符文之语与独特物品的功能并无太大区别。许多顶级符文之语之所以被认为是其对应装备栏位的最佳物品，仅仅是因为它们的功能更多，而非新增功能。其次，计算符文之语的等级上限（LEQ）存在一个难题：任何拥有足够数量插槽的武器或物品都可以成为符文之语，因此其属性并非固定不变。事实上，我正是利用了这种可变性来进行本次计算。野兽之语是一把等级极高的武器，就像碧蓝之怒一样，它的DPS（每秒伤害）没有参照物，因此无法计算其等级上限。所以我将符文之语的属性加成应用到一把等级过低的锤子上，以便观察符文之语究竟能带来多大的提升。

For the most part, I have not looked at runewords in this section—or anywhere else in the document. There are two reasons for this. First, runewords aren’t that different from unique items in the things they can do. Many of the best runewords are considered to be the best item for the slot they occupy, but only because they do more things, not new things. The second problem with writing up the LEQ of runewords is that any weapon or item with the appropriate number of sockets can become a runeword, so there are no fixed stats. I’ve actually taken advantage of the variability problem for this write-up. Beast is such a high-level weapon that, like Azurewrath, there’s nothing to compare its DPS to, so there’s no way to perform an LEQ calculation for that part of the itemization. I therefore applied the stat boosts of the runeword to an inappropriately low-level mace, just so we can see how much power the runeword grants.

对于一件低等级物品来说，“野兽”词缀的传奇等级（LEQ）约为45，其中大部分来自一个大型直接伤害词缀（平均约250%），以及一个狂热光环词缀，后者额外提供186%的直接伤害、大量攻击速度和显著的攻击力。该物品还能通过力量、能量和德鲁伊技能的组合获得约7点传奇等级。不过，我想再谈谈狂热光环提供的攻击力加成。该等级的狂热光环提供的是基于百分比的攻击力加成。与所有基于百分比的加成一样，它在高等级时价值更高，因此该词缀在相应等级的传奇等级会更高。（但这样我们就无法衡量DPS的传奇等级了。）

Applied to a low-level item, Beast sits at about 45 LEQ, most of that coming from a large, direct damage affix (about 250% on average) plus a Fanaticism aura affix which adds another 186% direct damage, lots of attack speed, and a great deal of AR. The item gains about seven more LEQ from a combination of strength, energy, and Druid skills. I want to go back to that AR bonus from Fanaticism, though. Fanaticism at that level grants a percentage-based AR bonus. Like all percentage-based bonuses, it’s way more valuable at high levels, so the LEQ of this affix would be much higher at the appropriate level. (But then we wouldn’t be able to measure the LEQ of the DPS.)

盔甲

Armor

灵魂熔炉：链接邮件，12 LEQ

Spirit Forge: Linked Mail, 12 LEQ

35级时（首次可装备），这件护甲能提供近三级的生命值加成。它还能显著提升火焰伤害，大约相当于六级生命值。此外，它还能提供三级力量加成。最后，它有两个插槽，但由于插槽数值波动较大，因此在本次计算中可以忽略不计。

At level 35 (the first time you can equip it), this armor grants almost three levels of life. It also adds a surprising amount of fire damage, roughly equivalent to six levels. Then, it adds another three levels worth of strength. Finally, it has two sockets, which aren’t even a factor in this equation since their value is so widely variable.

火焰伤害是这里最有趣的部分。火焰伤害是我所谓的“非装备栏位”能力的一个例子。通常情况下，装备在胸甲栏位的物品只会获得防御词缀。但少数独特的护甲，比如这件，实际上也会提供攻击词缀。这对于注重防御的角色来说非常有用，因为他们可以增加一些额外的攻击力。正是这些物品体现了《暗黑破坏神II》的精髓。合适的物品不仅可以发挥其主要作用（例如保护角色），还可以弥补玩家武器的不足。

The fire damage is the most interesting part here. Fire damage is an example of what I call “off-slot” abilities. Typically, items equipped in the chest armor slot only gain defensive affixes. A few unique armor pieces, like this one, actually grant offensive affixes as well. This is a huge help for a defensively-minded character who is looking for a little extra punch. It is items like these that typify Diablo II. The right item can not only serve its primary purpose (like protecting the character), but can also make up for shortcomings in that player’s weapon.

铁甲：格子盔甲，263 LEQ

Iron Pelt: Trellised Armor, 263 LEQ

由于这件护甲能提供10点物理伤害减免（整数，非百分比），因此它对同等级敌人造成的物理伤害的减免效果相当于250级以上。同等级区域的敌人造成的伤害通常不会超过10点，所以几乎所有伤害都能被减免。随着游戏进程的推进，敌人造成的伤害越来越高，这件护甲的价值也会急剧下降。在同等级区域，或者与其他具有物理伤害减免效果的装备搭配使用时，它是一件非常强力的装备。

Thanks to a physical damage reduction of 10 (integer, not percent), this armor is worth more than 250 levels versus the physical damage of level-appropriate enemies. Enemies in level appropriate zones don’t deal damage much above 10, so almost all the damage is mitigated. As the game goes on and enemies deal more damage, the value of this item decays precipitously. For a level-appropriate zone, or as part of a set of items which all have physical damage reduction, it’s a very powerful piece of gear.

幽灵裹尸布：幽灵护甲，13 LEQ

The Spirit Shroud: Ghost Armor, 13 LEQ

这件物品对魔法伤害的作用类似于铁皮对物理伤害的作用。两件物品均由等级相近的敌人掉落。主要区别在于魔法伤害虽然掉落率较低，但通常伤害更高。因此，尽管绝对伤害降低幅度大致相同，但这件物品的LEQ值却更低。更多伤害能够穿透这件物品并击中玩家。

This item does for magic damage what Iron Pelt does for physical damage. The items drop from enemies of a similar level. The big difference is that magic damage is less common, but usually hits harder. Thus, the LEQ on this item is lower, despite the roughly equal reduction in absolute damage. More damage makes it through this item and hits the player.

钢制甲壳：阴影板，36 LEQ

Steel Carapace: Shadow Plate, 36 LEQ

这件装备专为注重防御的玩家打造，可提供50%的冰冻抗性（27点生命值，因为同等级的敌人会造成大量伤害），以及11点物理伤害减免（9点生命值）。这是另一件这是一个装备品质（LEQ）比较特殊的物品的例子。冰霜抗性和物理减伤不能同时生效。虽然有些攻击可以分别造成物理和冰霜伤害，但没有攻击同时是物理和冰霜属性的。那么，简单地将这件物品的品质作为其各部分属性的总和来评价是否公平呢？严格来说，并不公平。然而，这件物品的高品质仍然展现了它的多功能性，而这种多功能性仍然非常宝贵。

An item for the defense-obsessed, this armor grants 50% resistance to cold (27 LEQ, as level-appropriate enemies deal a lot of damage), as well as 11 points of absolute damage reduction versus physical types (nine LEQ). This is another good example of an item whose LEQ is a little tricky. The cold resist and physical reduction can’t overlap. No attack is both physical and cold-based, although there are some attacks that deal both types separately. Is it fair to assess this item as the sum of its parts? In the strictest sense, no. At the same time, however, the high LEQ of this item still shows us its versatility, which is still extremely valuable.

雷神之力：战带，24 LEQ

Thundergod’s Vigor: War Belt, 24 LEQ

这件物品拥有多种增益效果，包括不错的闪电抗性（14点闪电抗性），以及生命值和力量（合计7.5点闪电抗性）。此外，它还有一些不错的非装备栏位加成。腰带上出现力量属性实属罕见，而如此高的加成更是凤毛麟角。虽然力量并非大多数玩家追求的属性，但当它出现在一件拥有其他重要属性的物品上时，便显得尤为重要。腰带上高额的力量加成还能帮助玩家满足装备其他部位（例如盔甲或武器）的力量需求。

This item has a great variety of buffs, including good lightning resistance (14 LEQ), as well as HP and strength (7.5 LEQ combined). This item also has some good off-slot perks. It’s rare to get strength on a belt, and even rarer to get so much of it. While strength isn’t a stat most players seek, it’s useful when it appears on an item that also has more important stats as well. Having a large strength bonus on a belt also allows the player to meet strength requirements on heavier items in slots like armor or weapons.

血拳：重型手套，7 LEQ

Bloodfist: Heavy Gloves, 7 LEQ

尽管最后一个难度的难度设定使得超强武器必不可少，但低等级时仍然有很多强力的独特物品可以帮助玩家快速升级。“血拳”提供五级直接伤害加成。虽然伤害加成词缀经常出现在戒指、护身符和武器上，但很少出现在手套上。“血拳”在第一难度的第一幕就提供了这项加成，玩家在第一次游戏时就能获得它。

Although the planned deficits of the last difficulty make super-powered weapons necessary, there are still plenty of powerful unique items at low levels that can give the player an acceleration. Bloodfist offers five levels of direct damage enhancement. Although damage modifiers often appear on rings, amulets and weapons, it’s rare for them to appear on gloves. Bloodfist offers this perk in act one of the first difficulty, and the player can find it in their very first play session.

德拉库之握：吸血鬼骨手套，LEQ

Dracul’s Grasp: Vampirebone Gloves, LEQ

这副手套很难用LEQ来评估，因为它有一些无法直接比较的属性。首先，它提供大量的生命偷取，每次攻击都能为攻击者回复生命值。这大大提升了攻击角色的有效生命值上限，但由于生命偷取没有等级上限，所以无法用LEQ来衡量。然而，如果可以衡量的话，这件装备的LEQ值会非常高，因为除了自带生命偷取之外，这副手套在攻击敌人时还有几率施放死灵法师的诅咒“生命汲取”，从而提供额外的生命偷取。这是一个典型的“非职业”技能的例子，装备可以让任何战士职业——野蛮人、刺客等等——使用效果极佳的死灵法师诅咒。许多顶级装备都具备非职业技能。有些装备（比如塔格欧套装）甚至允许某个职业施放其他职业的法术。有些非职业技能会在攻击时或受到攻击时触发。它们通常非常实用，可以解决诸如缺乏合适的元素伤害等问题。

These gloves are difficult to assess through LEQ because they have some incomparable attributes. Firstly, they offer high amounts of lifesteal, which transfers HP to the striker on every hit. This expands the effective HP pool for attacking characters but can’t be measured in LEQ because there’s no base amount of lifesteal per level. If we could measure it, however, the LEQ for this item would be quite high because in addition to having lifesteal built into the item, the gloves also have a chance to cast the necromancer curse “Life Tap” when striking the enemy, which grants even more lifesteal. This is a good example of an “off-class” ability, in which an item gives any fighter class—Barbarians, Assassins, etc—the ability to use a highly beneficial Necromancer curse. Many of the best items have off-class abilities. Some items (like the Trang-Oul’s set) simply allow a new class to cast some other class’s spell. Some of these off-class abilities are performed on strike, or when struck. They’re often quite useful and can solve problems like a lack of appropriate elemental damage.

盗贼之冠：至尊王冠，21 LEQ

Crown of Thieves: Grand Crown, 21 LEQ

这顶头盔价值21级LEQ（传奇装备等级），其价值主要来源于显著提升的敏捷、生命值和法力值。这些属性对几乎所有使用武器或盾牌的角色都非常有用。佩戴者还能额外获得10级LEQ火焰伤害抗性。这件物品的优点在于，虽然它没有提供任何一项可以量化的突出加成，但它提供了多种适中的增益效果。此外，它还能提供大量的生命偷取效果，虽然无法量化，但对很多职业来说都非常有用。

This helm is worth 21 levels in LEQ, gaining most of that value from significant sources of dexterity, health, and mana. These are useful for virtually anyone who uses a weapon or a shield. The wearer also gains another 10 levels of LEQ against fire damage. The nice thing about this item is that although it doesn’t give any one outstanding bonus that we can measure, it offers a variety of moderate bonuses. Additionally, it also offers significant lifesteal which cannot be measured, but which is quite useful for many classes.

钢铁面纱：尖顶头盔，42 LEQ

Veil of Steel: Spired Helm, 42 LEQ

这顶头盔凭借中等的力量、中等的生命值以及极高的全元素抗性，获得了近40点LEQ值。事实上，LEQ值低估了这件物品的价值，因为抗性LEQ值是我在总结中唯一没有进行累加的地方。我直接使用最高抗性的LEQ值来代表整体抗性。如果我们计算所有抗性的LEQ值之和，这顶头盔的LEQ值应该接近140。

This helm gains nearly 40 LEQ from a combination of moderate strength, moderate HP, and a huge amount of resistance against all elements. If anything, LEQ underestimates the value of this item, since resistance LEQ values are the one place where I don’t add up LEQ in the summary. Instead, I simply use the highest resistance’s LEQ as being indicative of the resistance overall. If we were to measure the combined LEQ of the resistances, the helm’s LEQ would be closer to 140.

荣誉之链：符文之语，72级传奇装备

Chains of Honor: Runeword, 72 LEQ

与盗贼之冠类似，这件符文之语护甲提供多种增益效果，适用于多种不同的流派。它的大部分传奇装备属性来自65%的元素抗性，但也提供物理抗性、生命偷取、力量，甚至还有25%的魔法物品掉落率。力量和生命偷取对武器使用者比施法者更有利，此外，这件护甲还拥有+2全技能加成。除了丰富的抗性和魔法物品掉落率之外，这件装备对任何职业来说都是梦寐以求的。

Similar to the Crown of Thieves, this runeword armor provides a variety of benefits that could be used by many different builds. It draws most of its LEQ from 65% elemental resistance, but also offers physical resistance, lifesteal, strength, and even 25% magic find. The strength and lifesteal benefit weapon-users more than casters, but the armor also has a +2 to all skills modifier. On top of the copious resistances and magic find, this is an item any class would covet.

影响 R/T 比率的两侧

Influencing Both Sides of the R/T Ratio

上一节提到的所有物品都能显著降低R/T比率中的时间因素，因为它们能大幅提升玩家的实力。有些物品能将特定属性提升50级以上，让玩家能够更轻松地快速消灭成群的怪物。暗黑破坏神II中独特物品的真正魅力在于，许多降低R/T比率中时间因素的物品，同时也能提升奖励的分子。最著名的例子是“魔法物品掉落率”词缀，它能提高玩家找到魔法物品、稀有物品、套装物品和独特物品的几率。但实际上，还有一些物品也能增加金币（虽然金币的用途有限）甚至经验值。游戏中一些最强大的物品，正是那些既能降低时​​间因素又能提升奖励的物品。下面我将介绍其中几件。当然，还有很多其他物品我没有列出，但下面这两件足以说明这种设计理念。

All of the items in the previous section do a great job of decreasing the time component of the R/T ratio by giving the player a huge increase in power. With items that can boost a given stat by more than 50 levels, the player will have a much easier time disposing of hordes of monsters rapidly. The real pleasure of unique items in Diablo II is that many of the same items that cut down on the time denominator in the R/T ratio also boost the reward numerator. The most famous example is the magic find affix, which gives the player a better chance of finding magic, rare, set, and unique items, but there are actually several items that also increase either gold (which, admittedly, isn’t very useful) or even experience points. Some of the best items in the game are the ones that are powerful enough to cut down the time component while also driving up the reward. I’m going to look at a couple of these items below. There are many others that I don’t list, but the two below are illustrative of the design idea.

骷髅之怒：赤褐色盔甲，7 LEQ

Skullder’s Ire: Russet Armor, 7 LEQ

虽然骷髅之怒本身威力并不算特别强大，但它带有一个可随等级提升的魔法物品掉落几率词缀，最高可达123%。此外，它还带有+1全技能词缀，这使得这件物品非常适合那些对生命值或护甲要求不高的远程角色。

Although not tremendously powerful by itself, Skullder’s Ire also sports a scaling magic-find affix that can scale as high as 123% increased odds of finding magic items. It also sports a +1 to All Skill affix, which makes the item ideal for ranged characters who don’t desperately need HP or armor.

丑角徽章：夏科帽，30 LEQ

Harlequin Crest: Shako, 30 LEQ

这顶头盔或许是游戏中最为热门的独特物品，它能为所有技能+2，并提供随玩家等级提升的生命值和魔法值加成。除此之外，它还能提供50%的魔法物品掉落率加成，帮助玩家在游戏过程中获得更多精英装备。

Perhaps the most popular unique item in the game, this helm offers +2 to all skills, as well as HP and mana bonuses that scale with player level. On top of all of that, the helm offers a 50% magic-find bonus, which helps the player to earn more elite gear as they go.

从谢弗变分到加速流

From Schaefer Variation to Acceleration Flow

正如本书第三章所述，加速和减速是《暗黑破坏神II》一项重要（且独具特色）的设计特性。我想稍作停顿，更广泛地探讨一下加速的心理效应。我将加速带来的这种奇特快感称为“加速流”。这是一种角色扮演游戏中常见的自然心理现象，即使是那些缺乏谢弗变式或其他类似结构的游戏也不例外。我将在下一节中详细描述加速流现象，但我们必须知道的是，谢弗变式会无意中产生加速效果。在采访《暗黑破坏神II》的开发者时，他们都表示喜欢加速流的概念，并且都意识到这种现象的存在，但这并非他们事先计划好的。[ 75-77 ] （我并不想让人误以为他们使用了我提出的术语，或其他任何术语来指代加速流。我只是描述了这种现象，而他们也认同观察到了某种形式的加速流。）

As we have seen throughout Chapter 3 of this book, accelerations and decelerations are an important (and idiosyncratic) design feature of Diablo II. I want to stop for a moment and deal with the psychology of accelerations more generally. I call the peculiar euphoria of accelerations acceleration flow. It is a natural psychological phenomenon that occurs in RPGs, even those that lack Schaefer variation or any similar structure. I’ll describe the phenomenon of acceleration flow in the following section, but the thing we have to know is that Schaefer variation produces acceleration incidentally. During my interviews with the developers of Diablo II, they all said that they like the idea of acceleration flow, and they all recognized that it was happening, but it wasn’t something they planned for.[75–77] (I don’t want to give the illusion that any of them used my term, or any other term, for acceleration flow. I merely described the phenomenon and they agreed they had observed some form of it.)

加速机制的最佳解释莫过于一个著名（但略显过时）的例子：魔兽世界的终局内容。在魔兽世界中，一旦角色达到当前等级上限，就可以参与高等级的“团队副本”，获取游戏中最为强大的装备。然而，这种机制引出了一个有趣的问题：团队副本难道就没有更高等级的内容了吗？那么，这些装备究竟有何用处？答案是，装备的存在是为了启动加速机制。玩家需要击杀团队副本首领才能获得装备。这些首领通常非常难以击杀，原因多种多样，但拥有更好的装备是降低难度的关键因素之一。由此便形成了一个正反馈循环。每次击败团队副本首领，都会掉落高端装备。每件高端装备都会让下一个首领的挑战变得更加轻松。（这与我们之前讨论过的加速机制颇为相似。）玩家不仅会获得越来越强大的力量，而且获得力量的速度也会不断加快。在历经艰辛达到满级后，力量的飞速提升会给玩家带来一种欣喜若狂的成就感。这种感觉就是加速心流。这种心理现象类似于匈牙利研究员米哈里·契克森米哈赖（Mihaly Csikczentmihalyi）提出的“心流”现象。当一个人处于“心流”状态时，他们会完全专注于自己正在做的事情，全身心投入其中。他们不会注意到时间的流逝，也不会注意到周围发生的一切。处于加速心流状态的人也会经历类似的体验。他们可以一遍又一遍地重复相同的操作来对付相同的boss（即使一切都已经机械化），因为他们不会去想这些无意义的重复。相反，他们会思考自己的角色正在变得多么强大，并思考这种力量的上限究竟在哪里。

Acceleration flow is best explained by a famous (and anachronistic) example: the endgame content in World of Warcraft. Once a character in World of Warcraft hits the current maximum level, he or she can join high-level “raids” that offer the game’s most powerful gear. This dynamic, however, brings up an interesting question. There is no higher level of content than raids. What is all that gear for, then? The answer is that the gear exists to start an acceleration. To get raid gear, the player needs to kill raid bosses. Those bosses tend to be very difficult to kill for a variety of reasons, but one thing that makes them easier is having better gear. Thus begins a positive feedback loop. Every time a raid boss falls, it drops high-end gear. Each piece of high-end gear makes the next raid boss easier. (This is rather like the accelerations we’ve already discussed.) Not only does the player acquire more and more power, but the rate at which they acquire power accelerates as well. This rapid increase in power, after struggling all the way to max level, gives the player a euphoric feeling of accomplishment. That feeling is acceleration flow. The psychological phenomenon is analogous to the phenomenon made famous by the Hungarian researcher Mihaly Csikczentmihalyi. When someone is in a “flow state,” they’re completely focused and engaged by whatever they’re doing. They don’t notice the passage of time, or anything going on around them. Someone in the thrall of acceleration flow is experiencing something similar. They can endlessly repeat the same maneuvers against the same bosses (even though everything is rote by now) because they’re not thinking about the mindless repetitions. Rather, they’re thinking about how powerful their character is growing, and wondering where the ceiling to that power might be.

在加速流程发生之前，设计者必须先建立一个基准线，否则玩家就无法察觉到自己正在偏离这个基准线。我把这个基准线称为中位关卡进展率，简称MLPR。

Before acceleration flow can happen, the designers have to establish a baseline, or else the players can’t tell that they’re accelerating away from it. This baseline is what I call the median level progression rate, or MLPR.

大多数角色扮演游戏（RPG）中，玩家角色升级的速度都相当稳定。但在一些RPG游戏中，例如《魔兽世界》、《魔界战记》或《最终幻想6》之后的大部分作品，玩家可以大幅提升角色的升级速度。这种情况通常发生在游戏后期，我称之为“终极加速”，它有助于增强游戏结局的高潮感。偶尔，这些游戏也会在游戏中期设置一些较小的升级加速（例如《最终幻想6》的浮空大陆和《时空之轮》的魔导城），旨在增强重要剧情节点的紧张感。这些加速的幅度较小，也远不如终极加速常见。

For most of any RPG, player characters gain levels at a fairly consistent rate. In some RPGs, like World of Warcraft, Disgaea, or most of the Final Fantasies after 6, the player is then able to greatly accelerate the rate at which they’re able to gain power. This usually happens at the end of the game in what I call a terminal acceleration, which helps to make the end of those games feel more climactic. Occasionally, these games will also build in a smaller, mid-game acceleration (FF6’s Floating Continent, Chrono Trigger’s Magus Castle) meant to embellish the tension of an important plot point. These accelerations are smaller and not nearly as common as terminal accelerations.

需要注意的是，MLPR（平均响应/时间比率）的概念是理论上的。它有助于理解加速过程，但并非精确的数学数据。理论上，每款游戏都存在一个中值响应/时间比率，尽管很难精确计算出具体数值。大多数玩家会逐渐习惯升级以一定速率发生，并能感知到与该速率的较大偏差（加速或减速）。在许多游戏中，尤其是在多人角色扮演游戏中，MLPR 是分段式的。也就是说，像《魔兽世界》或《暗黑破坏神II》这样的游戏会划分成不同的章节，玩家会明白每个章节都有其自身的 MLPR。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，这些章节划分相当明显：每个难度级别都有其自身的 MLPR。随着玩家难度的提升，他们会很快注意到响应/时间比率发生了永久性的变化。非常细心的玩家还会注意到，在每个章节中，响应/时间比率的变化幅度较小。以可视化的方式来看， 《暗黑破坏神 II》的 MLPR看起来就像下图所示。

It’s important to know that the concept of the MLPR is a theoretical one. It’s useful as a framework for understanding accelerations, but not as a precise mathematical datum. Technically every game does have a literal median R/T ratio, although it would be hard to figure out exactly what it is. Most players will get used to the idea that level-ups occur at a certain rate, however, and they will sense large deviations (accelerations or decelerations) from that rate. In many games, especially multiplayer RPGs, the MLPR is sectional. That is, a game like World of Warcraft or Diablo II will break down into discrete sections, and the player will understand that each of those sections will have its own MLPR. In Diablo II, those sections are fairly obvious: each difficulty setting has its own MLPR. As players progress through the difficulty settings, they’ll quickly notice that the R/T ratio has changed permanently. Very attentive players will also notice a smaller change in the R/T ratio across each act. Visualized, the MLPR of Diablo II would look something like what you see in the graph below.

总体而言，这让玩家感觉游戏过程中R/T比率呈下降趋势。这种趋势对于《暗黑破坏神II》后期极快的游戏节奏至关重要。

Overall this gives the player an impression of an R/T ratio that arcs downwards across the course of the game. This arc is an important one for the extreme late-game accelerations that Diablo II affords the player.

由于分段最大生命值提升曲线（MLPR）在游戏过程中缓慢下降，它为玩家提供了一个清晰的力量基准，并允许更陡峭的加速。游戏初期，玩家可以一击必杀大多数普通怪物，并且每小时可以升级数次，这为玩家提供了一个绝佳的基准。虽然玩家自然会接受游戏后期节奏更慢、难度更高，但他们永远不会忘记曾经的轻松。因此，当玩家在游戏后期开始获得强力装备和顶级技能时，他们就拥有了一个非常清晰的衡量标准。即使玩家角色已经达到65级，敌人是否仍然像游戏初期那样迅速倒下？这是加速体验的重要组成部分。如果玩家拥有一个清晰的参照系来衡量加速，他们就能更敏锐地感受到这种加速。由于分段最大生命值提升曲线会随着时间推移而下降，玩家可以获得比曲线更稳定时更强烈的快感。

Because the sectional MLPR slowly arcs downward across the course of the game, it gives the player a clear benchmark for power, and allows for even steeper accelerations. The early-game MLPR, in which the player can kill most regular creatures in one hit and gain levels several times an hour, serves as a great benchmark for players. Although players will naturally accept that the late-game is slower and more difficult, they never forget how easy things once were. Thus, when the player begins to acquire powerful gear and top-level skills in the later game, they have a very clear benchmark against which to measure. Are enemies falling as fast as they did in the beginning of the game—even though the player-character is now level 65? This is an important part of the feeling of acceleration flow. The player will feel the acceleration more acutely if they have a clear frame of reference against which they can measure the acceleration. Because the sectional MLPR declines over time, the player can get even greater euphoria than if it were steadier.

当受到众多技能加成词缀的加持时，一些高级法术，例如冰冻宝珠、祝福之锤和闪电之怒，实际上可以一次性消灭整屏的敌人，使玩家的击杀率（以及经验值/装备获取速度）甚至超过游戏初期的MLPR（最高等级）。这种加速效果并非总是持续，但身处其中的玩家会感到无比畅快，这也是这种现象的绝佳例证。

When buffed by numerous +skill affixes, some of the higher-level spells like Frozen Orb, Blessed Hammer, and Lightning Fury can actually kill whole screens full of enemies, raising the player’s kill rate (and thus EXP/gear rate) above even the early game MLPR. This acceleration doesn’t always last, but it’s a terrific feeling while the player is in it, and a great example of the phenomenon as a whole.

EXP/Gear 跨界车

The EXP/Gear Crossover

在《暗黑破坏神II》中，角色等级达到75级后，获得的经验值收益会递减。这看似阻碍了玩家快速升级，但实际上只是奖励类型的一种转变——而且无论如何，这种递减都可以通过蛮力来克服。根据David Brevik的说法[ 78 ] ，经验值惩罚的目的是为了延长游戏时间，并将高等级玩家的关注点从经验值转移到精英装备上。考虑到某些终极装备的强大程度，这完全说得通。在80级时，玩家升级一级和刷一件顶级装备所需的时间通常差不多（取决于装备掉落率和运气）。而且，装备的价值通常远高于角色等级。在高等级时，玩家可以轻松找到多项属性的LEQ值达到10或更高的装备。虽然经验惩罚会降低经验获取/时间比率中的经验值部分，但装备获取潜力的提升（以及玩家强大的实力降低的时间获取成本）使得最终升级速度大幅提升。

After level 75, Diablo II characters incur diminishing returns on all earned EXP. This seems like a roadblock to accelerations, but it’s really just a transition from one type of reward to another—and in any case, it can be overcome by brute force. The goal of the EXP penalty, according to David Brevik,[78] is to make the game longer and to change the focus of high-level players from EXP to elite gear. Given how powerful some of the end-game gear is, this makes a lot of sense. At level 80, it often takes equally long for a player to gain one character level or farm bosses for one piece of high-end gear (depending on magic find and luck). The gear is usually far more valuable than the character level, anyway. At high levels, a player can easily find a gear with LEQs of 10 or higher in several stats. While EXP penalties drive down the experience component of the R/T ratio, the increasing potential for gear (and the player’s extreme power driving down the time component) allows for a big terminal acceleration.

观察终端加速度

Looking at Terminal Accelerations

在经验值/装备交叉阶段之后，继续培养角色的玩家将进入“终极加速期”。无论玩家的目标是将角色升到99级，还是仅仅为了获得一套特定的装备，“终极加速期”都是游戏后期内容的核心机制。在其他角色扮演游戏中，游戏后期内容的驱动力在于击败最终Boss或可选Boss。而在《暗黑破坏神II》中，玩家可能会反复挑战最终Boss数十次、数百次甚至数千次，这一过程被称为“巴尔循环”。在这种情况下，击败最终Boss本身意义不大。相反，“终极加速期”为玩家的游戏活动提供了结构化的框架。对于经验丰富的《暗黑破坏神II》玩家来说，这才是真正游戏的开始。然而，许多其他玩家会在此时停止游戏，因为角色升级的速度急剧下降。由于缺乏明确的里程碑，一些玩家无法判断自己是否取得了进展。然而，考虑到游戏后期物品的LEQ值非常高，玩家在获得新物品时确实能获得巨大的实力提升——远超游戏初期。但这个过程不像角色等级75级之前那样流畅和规律了。

After the EXP/gear crossover, players who continue developing their character will enter the terminal acceleration. Whether the player intends to get his or her character to level 99 or simply to find a certain set of gear, the terminal acceleration is the organizing principle of end-game content. In other RPGs, the driving force behind end-game content is to beat the last boss or an optional boss. In Diablo II, the player might beat the last boss dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times in a process called “Baal runs.” In that context, killing the last boss isn’t terribly significant. Instead, the terminal acceleration provides structure for the player’s activities instead. For experienced Diablo II players, this is where the real game begins. Many other players stop the game at this point, however, because the rate at which the player gains character levels has dropped precipitously. Without that clear benchmark, some players can’t tell that they’re making progress. Given how high the LEQ values are for items in the endgame, however, players really do gain power when they acquire new items—much more power than they were gaining earlier in the game. The process isn’t quite as smooth or regular as it was before character level 75.

终局加速过程中最重要的动态因素之一是装备掉落的随机性如何影响掉落率/目标率（R/T）。游戏后期，玩家开始看到一些顶级装备，但获得这些装备的顺序是随机的。刚进入游戏后期的玩家需要武器、盔甲、头盔、腰带、靴子、手套、两枚戒指和项链（可能还需要一面盾牌）。我们可以把这看作是一个包含许多潜在部件的套装。一开始，任何高级物品都会是升级，因为玩家需要为每个装备栏位都配备一件新物品。总共有九个栏位需要填充，但任何高级掉落都会升级其中一个。如果玩家获得了腰带、头盔、武器、戒指和靴子，那么找到升级物品的概率就会低于50%，因为玩家已经填满了九个栏位中的五个。（这里假设每个栏位的物品掉落概率大致相等。这并非适用于所有套装，但总体原理是成立的。）同样的动态也适用于套装。假设我们有五名玩家组成一个团队去刷巴尔，他们正在寻找以下物品：

One of the most important dynamics in the terminal acceleration is the way that set randomness affects the R/T ratio. At the end of the game, the player starts to see some of the best gear available, but the order in which he or she receives that gear is random. A player just entering the end-game needs a weapon, armor, a helm, a belt, boots, gloves, two rings, and an amulet (and maybe a shield). We can think of this as a set with many potential pieces. At first, any high-level item will be an upgrade, because the player needs a new item for every gear slot. There are nine slots to fill, but any high-level drop will upgrade one of them. If the player gets a belt, a helm, a weapon, a ring, and boots, then the odds of finding an upgrade drop below 50% because the player has already filled five of nine slots. (This assumes that items from every slot drop at roughly equal rates. This isn’t true for every set, but the overall principle holds true.) The same dynamic is repeated for groups. Let’s say we have a group of five players farming Baal, and they’re looking for the following items:

雷神之力

Thundergod’s Vigor

戈尔骑士

Gore Riders

人类

Homunculus

不朽之王的熔炉

Immortal King’s Forge

不朽之王的细节

Immortal King’s Detail

不朽王之柱

Immortal King’s Pillar

这些并非巴尔在最高难度下掉落的全部物品——还有数百件。为了便于举例，我们假设有 60 件物品。假设我们的队伍正在寻找六件物品，那么从列表中获得特定物品的概率很低（1/60），但获得列表中任何一件物品的概率则高得多（1/10）。让我们用掉落率/掉落概率（R/T）来形象地说明这一点。

These aren’t the only items in Baal’s loot lists on the highest difficulty setting—there are hundreds more. For the sake of this example, let’s say there are 60. Our hypothetical group is looking for six items, so the odds of getting a specific item from this list are low (1/60), but the odds of getting any of the items are much higher (1/10). Let’s visualize it in terms of R/T.

由于游戏后期奖励的吸引力非常高，因此降低了玩家对MLPR的投入。当加速阶段最终结束时，大多数玩家基本上已经不再玩这款游戏了。

Because the power of the endgame rewards is so high, it softens the return to the MLPR. When the acceleration finally ends, most players are essentially done with the game.

套装的真正力量

The True Power of Sets

任意几件装备都可以组合成一套。许多流派需要特定的独特物品和符文之语，它们之间的协同效应远大于各部分效果的总和。在《暗黑破坏神II》中，还有我们称之为“游戏内”或“指定”套装的东西——游戏明确标记为套装的装备。例如，西贡的完整钢铁套装、娜塔莉亚的仇恨套装和塔·拉夏的裹尸布，随着套装完整度的提升，会获得特殊的加成。套装装备的出现频率仅比独特装备略高，因此通常单独使用也很有用，但随着套装加成的叠加，整套装备的品质等级（LEQ）会出现明显的拐点。

Any combination of several pieces of gear can form a set. Many builds call for a specific group of unique items and runewords whose effects are synergetic in a way that is greater than the sum of their parts. In Diablo II there are also what we might call “diegetic” or “denoted” sets—gear which the game explicitly marks as sets. Outfits like Sigon’s Complete Steel, Natalya’s Odium, and Tal Rasha’s Wrappings gain special bonuses as the set increases in completeness. Set gear is only slightly more common than unique gear, and so often useful by itself, but as the set bonuses start to mount, there are clear inflection points in the LEQ of the set as a whole.

收集一套装备所获得的奖励与投入的时间和精力成正比。单件装备而言，独特装备和符文之语装备比大多数套装都更强大。大多数职业的最强配装都包含许多非套装物品。然而，通过明确的套装物品，暗黑破坏神的设计者让玩家得以了解套装的随机性，并激励玩家追求完整的套装及其带来的加速效果。

The rewards for completing a set are commensurate with the time and effort it takes to do so. On a piece by piece basis, unique and runeword gear is more powerful than most sets. The most powerful build for most classes involves many non-set items. Through explicit set items, however, the Diablo designers give the player a window into how set randomness works and add extra incentive to pursue complete sets and the accelerations they can provide.

终端加速度的另一面

The Other Side of Terminal Accelerations

在我们的访谈中，David Brevik 告诉我一些最有启发性的事情，其中​​之一是玩家在游戏后期加速阶段获得的额外装备实际上是有意为之。[ 79 ]他解释说，当女巫看到一件极品野蛮人装备掉落，或者刺客找到游戏中最好的德鲁伊头盔时，玩家应该把这件装备保存下来，以便创建新角色。（至于如何将共享物品的概念与角色专属的物品仓库机制相协调，那就不得而知了。）这一理念将游戏的 Roguelike 元素、角色职业和加速机制巧妙地融合在一起。Roguelike 游戏的核心体验在于不断重新开始游戏。桌面角色扮演游戏的支柱之一就是不同的角色职业。《暗黑破坏神 II》的标志性特征是其加速机制。用一个已经拥有大量强力装备（从而加速游戏进程）的新角色重新开始游戏，将这三个理念完美地结合在一起，并以一种独特的方式延长了游戏时间。对我而言，重新创建角色的动力源于《暗黑破坏神II》游戏设计中所有精妙之处的完美体现。它将游戏的所有元素巧妙融合，形成一个引人入胜的漫长循环。

One of the most illuminating things that David Brevik told me during our interview was that the extraneous gear players get during the terminal acceleration period is actually intentional.[79] He explained that when a Sorceress sees an incredible Barbarian item drop, or an Assassin finds the game’s best Druid helm, the player is supposed to save that item to make a new character. (How the notion of shared items can be reconciled with the character-specific item stashes is anyone’s guess.) This one idea brings together the game’s roguelike heritage, character classes and acceleration-based gameplay. The most essential experience of the roguelike is starting the game over again. One of the pillars of the tabletop RPG is its different character classes. The hallmark of Diablo II is its acceleration-based gameplay. Starting the game over with a new character class that already has a bunch of powerful gear (which causes an acceleration) ties all three of these ideas together and extends the playing time of the game in an idiosyncratic way. For me, the impetus to restart as new characters is the encapsulation of everything that makes Diablo II elegant, from a game design perspective. It results in an incredible synthesis of all of the game’s influences into one long, engaging loop.

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结论

Conclusion

从《暗黑破坏神II》中汲取的教训

Lessons from Diablo II

在每本《逆向设计》的结尾，我都会总结本书的主要经验教训。我想先说明，我不认为电子游戏设计的经验教训可以简化为一些经验法则。本系列的核心主题之一是：执行远比理论重要。《逆向设计》系列的目的在于详尽地阐述那些伟大的游戏是如何将他们的理念，特别是从头到尾的每一个细节都付诸实践的。既然这类书籍需要结尾，那么总结经验教训就显得尤为重要了。

At the end of every Reverse Design, I summarize the major lessons of the book. I want to be clear that I do not believe that the lessons of videogame design can be broken down into rules of thumb. One of the overarching themes in this series has been that execution is far more important than theoretical ideas. The point of the Reverse Design series is to provide extensive detail about how the great games executed their ideas, in particular detail, from beginning to end. Inasmuch as books like these do need endings, a summary of the lessons seems useful enough.

1.包括《暗黑破坏神II》在内的众多电子游戏都融合了不同类型游戏的元素。 《暗黑破坏神II》借鉴了Roguelike游戏、传统桌面角色扮演游戏以及主机动作游戏的理念。有时，它甚至直接照搬某些游戏的创意：例如，《暗黑破坏神II》中的地图和物品掉落与它的前作《摩瑞亚》和《安格班德》非常相似。当然，有些创意也经过了修改：永久死亡机制是可选的，但所有玩家死亡后都会损失经验值和金币。角色职业也是如此；每个职业的玩法都各不相同，但它们并不遵循桌面角色扮演游戏的传统角色设定。换句话说，《暗黑破坏神 II》会挑选哪些想法适合它，哪些想法不适合它，以及哪些想法只需要稍作调整。

1.A great variety of videogames, Diablo II included, mix ideas from different genres that came before them. Diablo II borrows from roguelikes, traditional tabletop RPGs, and console action games. Sometimes it reuses an idea wholesale: maps and item drops in Diablo II are very close to those in their immediate ancestors, Moria and Angband. Some ideas are modified: permadeath is optional, but all players lose experience and gold when they die. The same is true with character classes; every class plays differently, but they don’t follow the traditional roles of the tabletop. In other words, Diablo II picks and chooses which ideas will work for it, which won’t work, and which just need a little adaptation.

2.在游戏设计中，看待随机性的方式有很多种。虽然所有随机性在数学上可能都类似，但大多数玩家（以及那些力求娱乐玩家的设计者）并不会感知到其中复杂的数学原理。因此，从心理学的角度来审视随机性会很有帮助。《暗黑破坏神》中的不同系统分别采用集合随机性、范围随机性、卡牌随机性和饼图随机性。如果你正在游戏中实现一个程序化系统，不妨尝试用一副卡牌、一个饼图或一袋拼字游戏字母牌（并赋予它们特定的值）来制作原型。

2.There are many different ways to look at randomness in game design. All randomness might be mathematically similar, but most players (and the designers who seek to entertain them) don’t perceive the complex mathematics. Instead, it’s useful to use different lenses to look at randomness from a psychological perspective. Different systems in Diablo operate by set randomness, randomness within a range, deck-of-cards randomness, and slice-of-pie randomness. If you’re implementing a procedural system in your game, try prototyping it by using a deck of cards, a pie graph, or a bag of Scrabble tiles to which you assign special values.

3.请记住，如果你要大量依赖程序生成的随机性，那么如果牌组里的卡牌或牌袋里的板块数量不足，游戏就会给人一种“复制粘贴”的感觉。要知道，《暗黑破坏神II》中程序生成地图的组件预设，需要三个人全职工作数年才能达到如今这种“随机”的效果。

3.Remember that if you’re going to rely heavily on randomness through procedural generation, the game will have a very “copy/paste” feel if you don’t have enough cards in the deck or tiles in the bag. Remember that the component presets in the procedurally generated maps of Diablo II required the full-time work of three people for several years to feel as “random” as they are.

4.主机动作游戏的基本设计结构——西角动作——在电子游戏史上经久不衰。即使在一些并非必须采用西角动作的游戏类型（例如数值密集型角色扮演游戏）中，它也能有效地避免游戏难度过低或过高。记住，没有游戏是完美平衡的！

4.The fundamental design structure of console action games, Nishikado motion, has been amazingly durable across the history of videogames. Even in genres where it isn’t necessary (like stat-heavy RPGs), it can be a useful way to keep your game from being too easy or too frustrating. Remember that no game is ever perfectly balanced!

5.如果你想模仿西角的动作，你的游戏就需要一些装备和敌人，这些装备和敌人的实力有时会与它们出现的区域不符，显得过于强大。

5.If you’re trying to emulate Nishikado motion, your game is going to need gear and enemies that are sometimes inappropriately strong for the area where they appear.

6.如果你想平衡装备，可以试试LEQ（装备等级）。它并非完美指标；事实上，没有完美的指标！但如果你在设计一款角色扮演游戏（RPG），考虑到游戏中角色等级的存在，将所有能力值都放在角色等级的背景下考虑会很有帮助。

6.If you want help balancing your gear, try using LEQ. It’s not a perfect metric; there is no perfect metric! But if you’re designing an RPG, it’s useful to think of all power in the context of character levels since you’re going to have them in the game anyway.

7.预判加速机制的可能性，并在游戏中恰当运用。关于角色扮演游戏（RPG）的普遍观点是，游戏中大量的重复刷怪会吓跑大部分玩家。《暗黑破坏神II》高度依赖玩家反复体验相同内容来获取经验和装备，但它仍然是有史以来最受欢迎的RPG之一。这是因为加速机制将原本枯燥的重复变成了令人兴奋的指数级增长过程。

7.Anticipate the possibility of accelerations, and use them in the right places in your game. The prevailing wisdom about RPGs is that the need for grinding in a game will repel large parts of the audience. Diablo II relies heavily on players repeating the same content over and over in order to farm EXP and gear, and yet it is one of the most popular RPGs of all time. That’s because acceleration flow turns otherwise boring repetition into an exciting process of exponential growth.